Predator: Darkness & Light
by K'Shai
Summary: Direct sequel to AVP: Annihilation. Strong sexual content. This story will follow the lives of K'Shai & R'chnt after the events of Annihilation. Recommend reading Annihilation first, but sit back and enjoy this work in progress. Once again - strong, strong sexual content. Enjoy! Reviews appreciated.
1. Chapter 1

_Hello all._

 _Many many years ago, I wrote a fanfic Alien Vs. Predator story - a love story featuring my 2 characters, the P2 Elder and his human lover. AVP: Annihilation (you can find it on my profile) is available for you to read! I hope you will do that._

 _Below, is the start to a sequel to that story - almost 20 years later. It was always a notion of mine to write a sequel to Annihilation, and thanks to the inspiration from a friend, I decided to begin on that story. Below, you will find Predator: Darkness & Light, which follows the life of my 2 characters, K'Shai & R'chnt (kuh-sigh and ri-chaaant). Darkness & Light is still an in-process story, and it will be an extremely long completed work once done. You will find the content of this story highly mature with graphic sexual content as well as blood & gore._

 _This is a direct sequel to Annihilation, and much of the beginning of Darkness & Light overlaps Annihilation. While you will be able to follow along with Darkness & Light without reading Annihilation, reading the original story will help you understand how these two lovers came to be and the events that destroyed Earth. I consider Annihilation my best written work, but I do hope you will find Darkness & Light enjoyable as it progresses._

 _Enjoy!_

* * *

 _Prey._

They were _prey.  
_

They were the hunted ones.

Some of them were challenging and cunning, possessed of deadly

weapons and enough of a combination of skill and insanity, with a barbaric rage to fuel their blood thirsty warring nature, that they were typically only hunted by the most experienced warriors, or those who were looking to prove they were up to the task, with lethal consequences in failure. To hunt such prey quickly and bloodily drew the line between a fool and a warrior.

They were smart and deadly enough to be worthy prey and the ones that proved to be less worthy than desired still became valuable adornments in any hunter's collection.

This is what the Yautja, what _he_ , had always known about the creatures of this world called Earth. The oo _mans_.

Now, they would be prey no more, by decree. It was the new way. For the damage done to the world had been so extensive, he doubted anyone, Yautja or human or any other native species was even going to survive the mass infestation of the _kainde amedha_ , the _hard meat_.

Still, the decree was in place as a way to protect the world and its species and help salvage the honor of the Yautja people for their part in the disaster.

He had hunted humans before, many times. His first experience on the world, tens of thousands of their moon rotations ago, provided him with a challenging hunt of deadly though fearful prey, and a surprising insight into the human concept of honor, something he was shocked to realize was not too dissimilar than a Yautja's own view.

He had returned to the world many times since and found the hunts challenging, with ample available prey, and such trophies always served as an assured way to improve one's status and attract interested mates each new breeding season.

His aged body bore scars, a sordid history of the situations he had survived now long faded to white and barely visible against the mottled gray patterns of his skin, of those hunts. His human trophies were a matter of personal pride to him.

His very first hunt on the world had garnered him five trophies and an equal number of mates upon return home; mates that left scars of their own as he fought to dominate them.

He had learned enough from his visits to the world of Earth to understand some of the many languages the _oomans_ spoke. The species, he found, was confusingly and chaotically varied to the point of frustrating. It was hard enough to learn one of their complex languages full of variation and nonsensical words, and yet with each new visit to the world as he studied his prey, he found himself needing to learn another and another.

Unlike lesser hunters, who had not learned from as capable of Leaders he once had, though, he knew that studying prey, learning about them and understanding their methods of communication, behavior patterns, and social structures were traits that separated skillful hunters from fools who would probably be killed.

He learned enough about the human species to pick out the most powerful and fearsome prey that would garner him the best trophies and provide the most interesting challenges on a hunt, proving unequivocally, his hard earned status as a capable warrior, a dominant force in his Clan, and a worthy Leader; an Elder who had proven himself worthy to hunt, mate, and train others.

On those hunts, he learned all he ever needed to know about the uncivilized, fear-driven, and brutal race. He learned why they were impressive prey, and he learned why they were reserved for the most experienced hunters.

He had seen others in his pack of peers, and even students under his tutelage, sent to greet Cetanu when faced off with the deadly creatures.

He never imagined, though, that all of those hunts would lead to this moment and this experience that had tried and tested, challenged and upturned everything he knew about the alien people that inhabited this world.

He never envisioned this most recent experience, the all-out war against the _kainde amedha_ and destruction of the human world, would take on the direction that it had. In fact, he recalled thinking, that had he been told of where his Path would lead before he had ever arrived to the world, he would have struck down the fool who spoke it.

To say such things was unimaginable, he once thought. Such notions were pure disrespect of an Elder such as he.

He had earned his blooding mark centuries ago, and in the rotations since, he had proven his might time and again, taken on the challenge of training students, and bore the scars that prey and mates had left upon him.

Had any Yautja told him of where he would be on this day, he surely knew his blood would boil. Had he envisioned this day in a dream, some vague omen from the gods that he barely understood, he would have thought for sure he was going mad; to think such things, such _vile_ things.

He was Yautja. Hardened, proud, strong, battle worn, of a dignified aged reflected in his gray skin, faded scars, long tusks, and the growth of horns that lined his jaws and crest of his head; features only of males who had survived as long as he.

He hunted well and survived due to cunning and tenacity and an accumulated wisdom that led him to change his way of thinking from the fiery and brash ways of youth to the tempered and confident ways of the Elder that had trained him.

R'chnt pondered such things only briefly as his mind filled with thoughts of his most recent experiences on this world; the experience that changed everything he was sure he knew thanks to one, little, soft skinned human, who had reached out to him with timid curiosity and reservation, who would sneak into his camp, curiously eyeing him and his group, and push the limits of his tolerance, who had challenged him in ways he had never imagined.

She challenged him to realize he did not know things he did not even know he did not know; she challenged his acceptance, and tried his patience, and by just being the curious thing she was, she inadvertently challenged him to be wise enough to step away from his centuries old, brutally reinforced Yautja ways and meet her on the same level of mutual intrigue.

Her curious and gentle nature clashed so dramatically with the weapons she carried and the angry scars etched into her soft skin.

He did not know much about how humans aged, but he knew enough to at least understand that she was far from an elder of her own kind. She was mature sexually, he could smell that much at their first encounter, but she had a childlike curiosity that made him suspect she was young.

Had she approached him, armed as she was, under any other circumstances, she would have found her fragile little body at the sharp end of his wrist blades. As it was, killing any human that was not _kau's_ _kvy_ - _de,_ laden with a _kainde amedha_ embryo, was strictly, and forever, banned as a matter of honor, unless for self-protection.

She had done nothing to instigate him; mostly to _annoy_ him at first.

He quickly thought to the first time he really paid the humans any mind. They had warily approached a field where a fleet of hunt ships and hundreds of hunters gathered to organize their attack.

The line between hunt and war was skewed and R'chnt and many others considered the battle nothing more than an extermination, although it was debatable exactly who or what was doing the exterminating.

Still, the Yautja job was clear. The _kainde amedha_ must be destroyed at any and all costs to salvage any shred of Yautjan honor.

But amongst the humans cowering at the field's edge, there she was, edging closer to where he stood than any of the others in her group. Over the weeks that passed and turned to months, her determined curiosity, despite certain fear on her face, struck him as most unusual, and as he indulged her curiosity as well as his own, he thought she would surely die.

He recalled thinking, the first time he saw her eyeing him wildly in fear and amazement, cowering so low and yet still so exposed, foolishly close to hundreds of aggressive warriors that could have killed her in a thousand ways before she even realized she was a target, how it could possibly even be that such a little, fine, and delicate creature could have managed to survive so long.

It was clear from the first look he shot her, from the first silent cue with his hand to direct her away, letting her know that he knew she was there and was entirely too close, that she was a typical human.

Only some were worthy of the hunt. The rest were little more than a good meal, as fearful and panicked as any prey animal that would flinch and flee like a grazing beast blindly hoping to outwit the assault of the predator that wanted to feed upon it.

So, when she first started warily approaching their camp, eyeing the hunters with a curious and fearful gaze, she was ignored.

Her endurance wore away at the entire group, though.

They called her a _wild animal_ ; a _persistent_ wild animal, blindly willing to walk into a camp of killers. She was _weak._ She was _foolish_.

They mocked her, they laughed in amusement at her attempts to stalk the hunters like they hadn't noticed her. And he could barely find himself without thoughts of her running through his mind.

First, thoughts of her pitiful cowardly posture, then thoughts of her ever-present wide-eyed curiosity, then thoughts of her scars; proof plain as day that she had survived horrific encounters, probably worthy of retelling at any Yautja campfire, then thoughts of her endurance, her keen wariness that was keeping her alive, and her tough resilience etched into her skin.

That timid and helpless looking creature, despite wide and wondering eyes, wore the signs of battle-heavy burdens on her shoulders. Her tightly locked jaw and constantly panning gaze told R'chnt she was always calculating where she was, and just what was around her, even if her senses were not as keen as the Yautja before her.

She would flinch at sounds of animals and trash blowing in the wind, but she still pressed on with her curiosity. She bore injuries from battles so recent that they barely healed, and beneath them, scars of older skirmishes highlighted her skin.

Her curiosity of the Yautja endured, and he found his own quickly piqued. He watched her when he made camp near the human group. He ignored the rumblings of his group as they mumbled amongst themselves why camp would always be made in the area of the human group that trailed them.

R'chnt made sure to either always return to them, or ensure they did not lose sight of the hunters in the first place. He watched her interact amongst her own group, stray off on her own, and he watched her spy on his group when she clearly thought she had the advantage.

When he once watched her as she removed her coverings in exchange for fresh and unsoiled garments, he saw aged and severe scars that mangled her lower right leg and imagined it must have been a feat unto itself for such a weak little creature to have recovered from such an injury and endure on under the conditions she was in.

That day in particular, she had wandered away from her group, blindly approaching a _zu'kainde_ , and for reasons he barely understood, he pulled her to safety, acting mostly on engrained instinct to kill the embryo-carrying creature and saving her as a mere by-product.

Yet, despite the fear she displayed; the flush of heat that coursed her veins, the rapid heartbeat and ragged breathing, she did something he did not expect. She clamped her tiny hand around his arm and spoke to him.

He could feel her body shivering and see the rush of heat from fear and panic flush her face as he watched her heart beat so wildly it seemed it might burst from her chest on its own, but she did not let go of the mighty hunter towering over her, not even as he retrieved his spear and wielded it inches away from her delicate frame, barely a third his size.

After several attempts in her tongue clearly asking him his name, he indulged both of their curiosities and responded. And in turn, she pushed further.

She tried again and again to understand him each time the hunters returned to camp for some rest. They called her _his_ human as they trilled their voices in a subtle laughter, thinking the whole situation was amusing to the point of ridiculous.

She curiously tried to learn his language as best as her alien tongue could manage. She pushed more by trying to understand him and his people better. She listened to him and she watched his motions for guidance.

She mimicked his gestures and mannerisms and tried her paltry best to hold up to brief training sessions, a pure delight to his hunting pack as they looked on in spectacular amusement. She did everything that prey was _not supposed to do_ , and she disproved so much of what he had known about her uncivilized, barbaric people.

He found K'Shai to be completely different than all the notions he had ever had of the race of _ooman_. Whereas most of the humans he had ever encountered and hunted were boisterous, brutal and deadly, she was quiet, reserved and gentle.

She demonstrated an intelligence greater than her age and cranial size would suggest she was capable, and a strength of will in addition to strength of courage that was surprisingly different than her otherwise weak and soft body would suggest.

She had a wisdom far beyond her own years. It was a wisdom that he was surprised to discover surpassed hunters far older than she. As he came to know her more, he realized it likely rivaled his own. The Yautja name he donned her fit her appropriately, _strong heart_.

When the great battle against the _kainde amedha_ began, R'chnt headed to the world, unsure if he would live to return to home once again, nor could he bother filling his mind with such concerns.

The dishonor that had unfolded on the alien world of Earth had crippled the Yautja race on the whole. Individual lives mattered only so much as they were willing to fight and die.

While it was not the result he _hoped_ for on any hunt, he did still hope to die with honor when the _Paya_ did finally call on him to join them.

He was an honorable and honored Yautja Elder, a Master of the Hunt and a teacher of students of every level in both hunting and spirituality. He had lived his life following the Yautja Path of Honor and willingly faced deadly opportunities upholding to very Way he taught.

K'Shai had put everything he knew to the test, but never his honor. She had proven herself a capable warrior, far stronger than he or anyone in his hunting pack had initially given her credit for.

He knew she was fragile, yet she was powerful and determined. And he knew her skin was soft, yet nothing prepared him for the first time she leaned in to him and put her lips to his cheek.

He recalled rigidly stiffening, still and silent. He held his breath and froze, not sure how to gauge her actions or how he should react. The feel of her lips against his worn skin, warm and soft and wet and tender, was so foreign to him, yet it was a powerful experience that stunned and overwhelmed him.

She eyed him warily after that first moment, apparently trying to gauge him for any sign of reaction, and he hesitated; contemplating exactly how to respond without overpowering or frightening her.

The brief delay was nearly too long as she suddenly withdrew with a combination of uncertainty and disappointment on her face. A myriad of thoughts ran through his mind in a fraction of a second, from the absurdity of the situation to the intoxicating scent of her body.

Whether she knew it or not, he knew she was amply ready to receive him. She was tender, shivering softly, and she was aroused.

His natural reaction, had he caught the ripe scent of a Yautja female, would have been to bellow out his desire to mate, strip off his garments and make as public of a display as possible announcing his intention for that female to prove his worth to her and ward off challengers.

Somehow, he thought, in that quiet early morning still on that rooftop weeks ago, his natural response would have been a bit too overbearing for K'Shai. He tempered himself and allowed her to show him the way she preferred, which quickly grew uncomfortable as she straddled him, further restricting access to his own growing arousal.

That is what caught him by the most surprise.

He huffed deeply, taking in her scent in the air as she pressed her small body onto his thighs and ran her hands along his powerful abdomen. As her voice quivered while she gasped and leaned into him, caressing his face with her warm and moist lips and tongue, he found the alien sensations; the _gentleness_ , of what he could only assume was typical for the human process of mating, completely foreign and utterly arousing.

The moment barely seemed real.

He focused in on her scent, growing more powerful by the moment. His own musk built in time with hers, and he wondered if her sense of smell allowed her to know how ready he was to have her at that moment.

Under any normal situation, he would have mated with her immediately, for a female's willingness to be a party to mating was short-lived and hot-tempered. It was best to get the act complete as quickly as possible to limit physical injury to both parties.

Delaying in such activities could sour a receptive female's mood quickly, and an unhappy Yautja female was not something any intelligent male who valued his genitals, or any other part of his body, wanted to create.

But K'Shai was not Yautja.

The very fact that he even grew aroused by her delicate touch was beyond the scope of any absurdity he could imagine.

That he found the heated scent of her receptive body stimulating was perplexing to him. That he found her soft skin enticing, that his body churned as he ran his hands along her heaving chest and caressed her exposed milk glands which clearly stimulated her further, that his erection grew and dripped, uncomfortably restrained behind an armor codpiece that would have been long disposed of for a situation like that as she straddled him and caressed him and kissed him, would have made him question his sanity had he not been so hypnotized by the sensation of it all.

As it was, that night was not meant to be.

They were in the midst of a war, and the combination of the hard meat arriving and an unexpected and very unwelcome interruption by a human of K'Shai's group brought their activities to a quick end.

The battle ensued and the situations that followed did not give any time for either of them to pick up where they had left off.

Then, a few rotations ago, K'Shai was attacked brutally by males who intended to mate with her against her will. Even in the Yautja culture this was a forbidden act, and while typically such matters were handled strictly by females, including punishment of the offenders, R'chnt carried out a typical punishment for such crimes in defense of K'Shai.

He severed the male's genitals off while he watched and shrieked in agony before being slowly skinned from the toes first and ultimately eviscerated.

Had he arrived a moment later, R'chnt knew K'Shai would have fallen victim to the unwanted penetration.

For the last five rotations, he had been hunting down a hive and every one of its occupants that ran wild in the long abandoned streets of yet another human city, further delaying the culmination of their previous interactions.

When he returned to K'Shai, injured from a high fall and deep gouge in his side, he crawled into bed with her and slept, exhausted. He woke up, decidedly embarrassed over his momentary weakness, and how he must have looked to her.

She was, just a few days earlier, ready to mate with him and instead she just watched over him warily, surveying his wounds and no doubt trying to decide if he was up to such vigorous activities.

It was natural for a Yautja, any Yautja, to gauge the physical status of another, especially if the other was older, higher ranked, and was weak enough to possibly be defeated by an otherwise incapable aggressor.

He crawled into the bed with her despite his weakened state, reminding himself yet again that she was not Yautja. For someone so much smaller and paler and softer than any Yautja, he amused himself with the thought that he seemed to easily forget that she was not one.

As her companions joined her, he knew they were surveying his injuries as well. He immediately suspected the males were gauging his ability to continue as Leader.

Perhaps they were keen on attempting to take his place, he thought while they watched him. He felt his grip tighten on the hilt of the sword on his waist, just in case.

"My friend Carlos would like to look you over, R'chnt." K'Shai had said to him as she approached him.

He grumbled a refusal once, then twice at her insistence.

"He's a healer. At least let him look. There's probably not much he can do." She tried again and again he growled a decline.

It was bad enough to be in the weakened state he was. He removed himself from sight of the rest of his group to allow some time to recover.

The thought of having yet more witnesses to his condition and to top it off to be medically evaluated by an alien was detestable.

She smiled coyly at him, pressing her lips together softly as she carefully considered the situation. She placed her small palm gently on his jaw, delicately cupping the bony tusk protrusions that grew from his lower mandible as she gazed at him.

"My friends are," she spoke softly, barely above a whisper, and slowly as she struggled to make the proper sounds and remember the word order of R'chnt's spoken language, "nervous about this. They don't really know what to make of it. About _us_. Letting him look you over is his way of showing that they are trying to accept this."

Humbled by a wisdom he hadn't even considered, he nodded in agreement, and as it turned out, the male human healer was able to retrieve the broken finger of a _kainde amedha_ that had been lodged into the thick muscles of his back, deep enough that the claw was pushing between R'chnt's ribs.

It felt better immediately upon extraction and he had not even realized it was there. He could breathe easier the moment it was removed.

He assumed the pain he was feeling was from the hard fall off the rooftop to the ground some fifty feet blow when the thing knocked him off the structure. He was not about to complain about the sharp pain before his pack, or ask the healer amongst his own group for attention.

It was one thing to seek assistance for minor issues like a broken appendage or jaw, and other issues like superficial wounds were easy enough to attend to on one's own with basic field training, but for a Leader to seek out help from those under him in his own hunting pack, was a sure fire way to be presumed too weak to continue on.

He had returned to K'Shai immediately after tracking their way back through the strange alien towns only to find her asleep. Sucked in by her quiet peacefulness in the darkness of the pre-dawn hours, he simply filed into bed stealthily, smelling the sweetness of her skin and sharing her warmth with his own.

She stirred and had greeted him with a pleasant touch, brimming smile, and gentle caress. He had wanted to engage her further, but he had hunted without rest for six days straight.

Such an excursion pushed the limits of any Yautja, and despite his many intense hunts, he had trouble recalling such a time where he found so little sleep in so many rotations of the sun and moon, before he simply passed out into deep sleep under her caress, the soft weight of her head pressed against his chest as she extended an arm around his abdomen.

He found it mildly perplexing that she did not view his momentary weakness as a failure on his part. She did not make dismissive gestures or grunt admonishingly, nor did she display any desire to challenge his authority in light of his incapacitation, however short-lived it might be.

K'Shai did not view his injuries as a reflection of weakness, and neither did her companions, which was a concept hard for him to understand. They extended a helping hand to the best of their abilities, and hoped the interaction would fuel some attempt at co-existing with him for the sake of their companion.

They hoped his pain would make him more receptive to their help, and though they approached him, he could see and smell their fear.

After he rested more, R'chnt and K'Shai spent the entire day with the rest of his group. One of the others hunted some food and offered up a chance for the group on the whole to recuperate from their most recent excursion, on the roof of the very same building the humans kept their own camp in.

He sat in quiet contemplation of K'Shai's actions, and those of her companions, trying his best to work out the human mentality if he could.

It was so drastically different from a Yautja's view, that as he scanned K'Shai, lost in thought, he wondered if he would ever really understand the human kind. It seemed their males understood their females far better than he could even understand females of his own kind.

K'Shai sat close to R'chnt and as they day wound down, she crept closer and closer until her flank and hips were pressed into his thigh and his large hand and armor braced forearm encompassed her so completely she was blanketed by his warmth as the sun dipped, the air cooled, and rain clouds moved in.

She kept her eyes turned away from him, watching the group around her instead, but the coy contact, the gentle touch of her body against his, was clearly intentional and it made R'chnt's mind brew on other topics, like their last few encounters together.

It was a whole chain of realities that he found borderline insane and impossible. He _wanted_ her and he knew by her previous advances, the powerful scent in the air of her readiness to be mated, and her absolute _need_ for physical contact with him, that she wanted him.

How she greeted him and stayed by him whenever he was near, was something else foreign to him, as female Yautja neverpursued mates or took a singular interest in any male. It was _always_ up to the male to make his interest known in whatever way he needed to in order to get her attention, and then hope her attention would be positive, and not bone-breaking in return.

K'Shai, while keeping her gaze away from R'chnt as her body gently graced his, thrilled him with a coy hint of desire, the scent of which filtered into his nasal passages as she sat near him. He could sense she wanted him, yet she also kept him just confused enough, by not engaging with him further to, make him stew in silent frustration.

His body still ached, though the medicines he took relieved much of the pain. He wondered if she could sense that he was still hurting and was put off by the idea of his weakness. Perhaps she thought he was not up to the physical strain of intense interaction with her.

Perhaps she was eyeing W'rsa so intently because he was younger, less injured, and his bright bold markings against his subdued yellow flesh contrasted dramatically to R'chnt's own faded grays, which once were a brilliant sea of reds, greens, and yellows atop heavy black mottling.

He glanced at his own skin for a moment and suddenly felt a flicker of anger rise up as he torqued his upper mandibles in subdued rage and confused contemplation. He shook the thoughts from his mind as K'Shai leaned just a bit deeper into him and placed her hand carefully, with a hint of reluctance, on his thigh.

The sensation of her hand, which felt cool against his naturally hotter body, had the effect of distracting him completely. He picked up on her subtle uncertainty.

In the same way as she had first touched him, pressing her lips to his cheek and waiting, shaking softly, to gauge his reaction, she likewise put her hand on the inside of his thigh carefully and he felt her take a certain pause. He knew immediately that this was her reserved way of gauging what he would permit.

Without a word, she was asking permission to touch him more.

Had she been Yautja; had she been male, the opportunity to touch him _then_ ask for permission would never have happened.

Had she been Yautja female, it would have been R'chnt who would have waited in reservation, surveying the female's mood to try to figure out what her next move was going to be; pleasant or painful.

K'Shai was neither and he welcomed the mental distraction and deeper contact. Without hesitation, as their first encounter had caught him so off guard, R'chnt shifted his position slightly, softening into her, answering her question in silent return and she took a firmer hold, sliding her hand even more along the inside of his thigh.

She never looked at him. She simply listened to the Yautja hunting pack telling tales of their conquests old and new.

R'chnt watched her, studying the gaze in her eyes, silently understanding that she was trying to keep up with the flurry of grumbling, throaty and shrill clicking sounds of multiple conversations, deciphering whatever words she knew and trying her best to fill in the gaps as best as she could, throughout the day and after the sun dropped beyond the darkening clouds as a storm moved in.

Feeling stronger from the day of quiet rest and much needed food and drink, R'chnt let his mind drift as the evening moved on. He fell quiet for so long he had barely heard a single word of any of the conversation around him.

He moved his arm into K'Shai tighter, ever so subtly drawing her in even closer to him and she immediately responded comfortably by leaning her body just slightly further under the pressure of his direction until her shoulder pressed into his ribcage.

He turned his mighty jaws towards her, clicking softly; the first sound he had made since before the sun withdrew from its rotation.

K'Shai heard it and tipped her head to him, drawing her lips back and exposing her teeth; an action he had learned from watching her that conveyed happiness, comfort, or intrigue.

He learned that, not unlike the Yautja, humans facial expressions were often backed up with body language. It was a challenging learning process for him to begin to decipher such subtle shifts in positioning of K'Shai's face and body that conveyed her intent and emotion.

He found understanding her alien mannerisms difficult and sometimes confusing and conflicting. Sometimes he wondered how two humans interacting with each other even understood what the other was meaning.

To a Yautja, exposing the teeth in such a way, especially combined with direct eye contact, was a definite challenge. R'chnt felt himself stiffen with alarm as K'Shai had first made the gesture to him, as the facial expression had conflicted so much with her submissive body position at the time, he was actually surprised she would dare challenge him, and over what he had no idea, since they were having a peaceful interaction.

He had finally inquired, braced and defensively, about the gesture, and deflated a bit when she explained that a smile was a human expression of pleasure. He perceived it well now, and the shimmer in her eyes as a flicker of lightening in the distance caught her attention, told him she was curious about the sound he made.

She glanced around at the skies, her expression changing slightly as she took note of the brewing storm rolling in, then she turned to him with a look he had seen in her eyes not once, but twice before. Two interrupted times before.

He had seen, what he believed, was the full range of K'Shai's moods; reserved curiosity tainted with fear and uncertainty, true fear, pain, and contentment.

Every time he surveyed her, he became better at reading and understanding her moods, although, he could not tell exactly the interpretation of the newest gaze she cast at him, he could see the minor change in her features.

She shifted her eye contact down, and softly gripped her lower lip with the corner of an upper tooth while she surveyed his body, scanning her eyes over his old scars, fresh wounds, faded spots and pale gray belly.

She cast him another small smile and nudged her shoulder into him gently, carefully avoiding his injuries.

"Maybe we should go inside. It's going to rain."

K'Shai whispered the words to him as she tipped her head closer to his jaws. She spoke in her own tongue, knowing full well he would understand, and she spoke quietly enough perhaps so she was not overheard by the others in case they understood as well.

The others in his pack all spoke some of the human languages, but there were many and each hunter's vocabulary of whichever languages they knew, was somewhat insufficient to hold a conversation. Even if anyone did hear, it made no difference to R'chnt if they knew and understand where the pair would be heading or why.

R'chnt's scent changed in an instant at her invitation, informing his group through finer, highly-developed senses, exactly what his intentions were. The fact that she preferred to be inside, out of the rain was of no consequence to him, but as he allowed her to show the way down the stairs that jutted off the side of the building and down two levels to the private living accommodations where she had been staying, he could not help but presume that a public display of her intentions was not something she desired.

He assumed that was the human way as well, keeping such matters private.

She stepped through the viewing portal into the living area, scurrying just a bit faster the last few feet as the skies opened up and rain poured down on them both. K'Shai giggled as she quickened, apparently trying to avoid the rain for whatever reason.

He was sure that humans could tolerate being wet and the precipitation was not burning to the skin as it was on some worlds he had been to, but he did not spend much time considering her unusual reaction to the water pouring down.

R'chnt crawled through the narrow opening and K'Shai watched him. Though he had spent the day resting, he was still on an alien world, on a hunt, surrounded by aliens of two different species, and in the middle of a war.

He had never let his guard down and had remained fully armored, ready to go at a moment's notice. K'Shai eyed him as he crawled through the much-less-than-Yautja-sized opening into the living area without scraping so much as a lock of his thick, ropy hair against the frame of the building.

Five days had passed since she had last seen him. His absence throughout those shortened fall days had given her own body time to heal, apparently while his was out getting fresh injuries.

She had been beaten, stabbed, and nearly raped the last night they were together. The following days had given her plenty of time to reflect on his actions that night, not to mention his impeccable timing, preventing the deed from taking away her unspoiled gift she wished to bestow upon him.

It allowed her plenty of time to anticipate that moment, to imagine what it would be like to feel him.

He stood tall after he climbed through the window, a few droplets of fresh rain rolling off his head, down the length of his thick, dreadlocked hair, and dripping from the edges of the armor he wore over his shoulders.

K'Shai eyed him, softly biting her lower lip and steadying her gaze. He loomed in the dark apartment, with ceilings that offered only a few inches of clearance over his mighty frame. Towering over her by nearly two full feet, the top of her head barely leveled with the bottom of his pectoral muscles. She had quickly gotten accustomed to looking up at him long ago.

R'chnt was taller than all the others in his group. The only other one who came anywhere close to his size was W'rsa, who still was a good four inches shorter. R'chnt towered over the others in his group by a solid twelve inches and he was of a bigger build than any of them.

Unlike the human process of aging that left a body weak, wrinkled, shrunken and frail, the Yautja grew throughout their lives, and impressive height, body mass, and long tusks, were all indicative of a hunter of advancing age.

R'chnt amplified those features with the growth of additional tusks along the bottom of his lower mandibles and rows of horn-like calcifications that protruded from his skull, in addition to the loss of the once bright colors of his skin.

He was solid, sturdy, powerful, and his very posture was enough to make anyone tremble in his shadow. R'chnt commanded respect and dominance without even so much as moving.

His muscles were well defined and broad, his solid body a living monument to his strength, prowess, and foreboding aggression. He carried himself with pride, stood tall and intimidating, with his back straight, shoulders wide, large, clawed feet firmly under him, hips' width apart.

His powerful and dignified stature, grayed facial quills, weathered look, and his sharply-toothed mouth capped with four mandibles each crowned with tusks over three inches long, longer than any of the others' in his group, told the story in silence of his experience, cunning, strength, and ferocity.

The emanating scent from him was arousing; a heavy aroma that K'Shai could almost taste in the air, strong enough to be unmistakable, but also with a lightly sweet scent that drew her in and made her feel eased and peaceful as she stared at him.

His body was a magnificent totem of muscle, scars, and alien decorations of bone, metals, jewels, and beads. His lower left mandible was capped in a tusk that had been broken off about an inch from the tip.

He had a piercing through the tusk that grew downward from the same mandible. The little metallic bead shimmered softly as lightening from outside lit the room.

She eyed his chest moving ever so slightly as he breathed, noticing the lines and textures of his sculpted muscles and the thick skin that stretched ever so powerfully tight over them.

She moved into him and he held so still he might have been confused for some kind of display piece in the livingkitchen area. She could feel her own heart pounding, her nerves tingling in anticipation intermingled with just a hint of reservation and as she reached out to touch his gray skin, feeling the immense warmth of his stationary body as she laid her fingertips against his mighty chest and brushed her hand over his body, pushing it under the dangling bone necklaces he wore that dropped so low they almost looked like sashes across his chest amid the leather straps and metal buckles that secured his torso armor, she wondered idly, for a flicker of a moment, if he was at all nervous too.

If he was, his steady gaze and tightly clenched mandibles and typical straight and proud posture did not reveal any hint of it.

"Finally alone," she whispered to him as she drew firmly into him.

He was not caught off guard by her advance. Not this time. He was anticipating it just as much as she was. Her body's pheromones changed the instant she climbed into the sanctuary of the quiet and dry space.

While on the roof top throughout the day, the scent that wafted into him teased him constantly, indicating that she was most certainly cycling through a breeding season and receptive to mating.

Just when he thought the enticing scent could not possibly get stronger, it did. He watched her eyeing him with a desiring, hungry look and her scent amplified in a moment. As she stepped in to him and made contact with his body, he could smell her readiness just as instantly as he could feel his own body churning and musk building, telling her he was ready as well.

She pressed herself against him, wrapping her small hands around his torso as far as she could reach and without the slightest hint of delay, R'chnt lifted her off the ground, tucking one gauntlet covered forearm under her thighs while the other hand stroked her from the shoulder to the bottom of her back.

She wrapped her legs loosely around his waist and groaned softly. R'chnt clicked in excitement and the sound quickly turned into a deep, pleased rumble; a low growl that turned into a purr after just a few of her gentle and arousing caresses.

K'Shai was direct, unquestioning in her intentions, her scent building in his nasal passages, but she was also gentle. She melded her body into his, fondling him passionately, with clear desires for mating and yet no intention to challenge him or push him aggressively.

It was mystifying to him how she could be so submissive and aggressive at the same time and he returned the gesture in kind by controlling his desire to tackle and dominate her.

K'Shai pressed her lips into his cheek. Her warm moist lips and tongue pecked and slid over his thickened facial skin and the tusks along his lower mandibles and found their way over and past every wrinkle and scar, taking in every detail of the right side of his face, feeling so soft against him, yet so stimulating.

She reached one arm up and whisked aside a few strands of his heavily beaded hair in one quick motion and his body shuddered. The feel of her small, soft hand against his hair, however briefly, stimulated the sensitive tissues of the half a dozen or so strands that she gripped.

He preferred no one to touch his hair, save only for the necessity of having the rings and beads fused to his locks during ceremonies that recognized his hunts, accomplishments, and elevation in status and rank.

Unlike K'Shai's own soft flowing human hair, which was comprised of dead fibers, the blood and nerve filled strands of R'chnt's living hair not only conveyed heat through his body, they were a source of pain if improperly handled, and as K'Shai discovered by his aroused reaction to her touch, they provided pleasure when touched in a certain manner.

She paused only briefly at the shuddering reaction and noticed R'chnt close his eyes in the same moment, locked tight mandibles suddenly relaxing apart, his lower mandibles dropping down, relaxing open as the upper ones eased up to release them. His growling purr amplified and K'Shai immediately pressed her lips further back along his jaw.

Her lips and tongue traced over the small quill-like hairs that protruded from the side of his lower mandible, a beard of sort. The quills also sparsely grew over his temple, above his eyes, and along the ridges of both side of his head, intermixed with fine rows of bony horn protrusions that extended from his temple to nearly the back of his skull.

R'chnt's entire body suddenly eased up at the stimulation of the fine quills. His purr changed for a moment to a subtle groan of complete delight as her touch sent waves of pleasure through him.

He shifted his hold on her only slightly and moved his hand that had slid down her back to caress just under her butt, to his own belt buckle. He moaned uncomfortably at the growing pressure behind the protective cod piece that sat atop his leather loin cloth as he reached in to unlatch the belt.

K'Shai whimpered and moaned in delight and as she moved her hands back along his body, she leaned in tightly against him and whisked his hand away from its intended destination before it got to where it was going.

She leaned at an angle into his free hand, fully supported by his unfailingly firm grip he had under her thighs with the other hand, and pressed her chest into his palm as she moved both hands across his chest and feverishly fingered at the buckles of his _awu'asa_ , his hunting armor.

R'chnt clicked and trilled and purred, echoing K'Shai's own soft and light vocalizations. Distracted for a moment from relieving himself of the growing pressure at his waist, he watched her eyeing the buckles and connections to the chest plating of his armor as she stroked her hands along the wide leather straps and tried to fumble with them like they were some kind of complex puzzle pieces that had no way to come apart.

He guided her hands, showing her without a word how to unclasp his armor, starting with the support arm and control connections and power supply for the shoulder mounted plasma caster that he wore over his left shoulder and down the left side of his back.

Their hands moved together, briskly removing the pieces and he gripped the entire unit as a whole in his left hand, dropping it with a thud to the ground at his feet, the cannon making a small, fading whirring sound as its connections to its power source were cut.

Without delay, he helped her understand how to take apart the next connection and judging by her sudden and emphatic shriek of pleasured delight, she was surprised to see that a single connection released the entire rest of his chest armor which he quickly dropped to join the shoulder weapon.

She slid her palms over his bared shoulders and once more tenderly groped the back of his neck, running her hand through his hair, stimulating him into a deeper purr, distracting even more completely from removing his belt as he had intended.

As the sound of his own low rumble filled his ears, he barely even realized he was distracted from just about everything except the scent her body and the surging of his own body, which was becoming more difficult for him to keep in check as she made light moaning and cooing sounds which grew more intense with every passing moment and caress as she succumbed to her own body raging.

Without effort, she found the clasps to his trophy necklaces and ribbed black neck seal, releasing them all in a few feverish passes of her hands and allowing them to drop out of her grip and onto the floor.

Leaning back in the firm support of his arm, she removed her upper coverings in a single swipe, crossing both hands in front of her body, and raising her elbows in the air as she pulled her garments free.

Her hands dropped again and she removed an additional garment that adhered tightly to her body in support of her milk glands.

R'chnt's body churned and moaned to him, both in constrained discomfort and heightened arousal. K'Shai pressed herself against him again and his hands slid along her body, around her chest, up and down her sides, across her neck and under her hair, taking in the light, soft feel of her smooth skin under his heavy fingers and palms.

His claws trailing more than an inch past the ends of the skin of his fingers, glided smoothly over her delicate skin.

Though thoroughly distracted by the discomfort of his own pressure he was enduring at the expense of her pleasure, he remained aware of exactly how much pressure he applied to her skin with his claws and his firm grip.

He caressed her and embraced her, but he paid careful mind not to puncture her or crush her against his solid body as she leaned and rocked and licked and kissed him, her hands rubbing everywhere they could reach.

His purr changed momentarily to a rumble as K'Shai elicited further arousal, rubbing her hands teasingly low, brushing over his belt buckle, allowing her fingers to whisk over the cod piece, reminding him of the discomfort of the restriction he was enduring while he clenched her close to his body.

Her softly tipped fingers, with only short, broken, and dirty fingernails and no damaging claws, glided easily along the horizontal tracts between sections of the _dlex_ metal codpiece and her hands flowed smoothly in opposite directions, brushing over the loincloth, ever so lightly igniting the inside of his thighs.

Just then, she quietly indicated for him to release her back down to the ground. He eased her back down the distance to the floor and she landed easily on her feet, eyeing him with an inviting smile and a light laugh before she turned and started slowly moving away from him.

She paused to remove the large, protective coverings over her feet and a liner that covered her skin, and then swayed quite deliberately as she strode away delicately removing the long garment that covered her waist and legs.

R'chnt could feel the pain of his arousal as his body screamed at him to ease the pressure. Without delay, accompanied by an intrigued rumble somewhere between a growl and a moan, he unclipped the belt that supported the cod piece as well as the armor plating that protected major muscles of his thighs from serious injury.

He removed an additional belt he wore, which supported more weapons, a food satchel, and a pack of other supplies.

K'Shai made her way down a short corridor and into the room with the sleeping platform which was not too dissimilar from his own, only smaller, lower, and less substantial in appearance and firmness and slid onto it, still facing R'chnt.

She pulled herself backward and waited, heaving excited breaths as she did, while he paused to unlatch the armor plating that protected his forearms and lower legs from the knee down and finally removed the sandals under his feet.

He had barely even noticed that the edges of the armor had actually begun to impress into his skin along his forearms, knees, and lower legs from constant use for such an extended period of time.

It felt good, though colder than he preferred in the tiny space of the dwelling, to be removed of his armor. He only briefly tried to even remember the last time he even had it all off.

Sleeping in his armor, especially while on a hunt, was something he was certainly accustomed to, but he could not recall any time in his life when he wore the equipment non-stop for so many rotations.

Though the cycles of the sun and moon on her world were shorter than his own, he knew he had been on the alien planet for two-hundred-fifteen of them, and had come to know K'Shai through most of them.

He moved into K'Shai, who reached forward to greet him eagerly with her hands immediately gripping both sides of his hips.

He leaned over towards her, one hand propped on the soft mattress, his face near hers as she greeted him again with her lips. Her hands left his hips and traced his body softly as she laid back under him and scooted backwards onto the bed more and removed the final piece of garment she wore, which covered her groin.

R'chnt kept his gaze on her body and watched her slide under him, his tusks teasingly dragging along her chest and abdomen as she did, eliciting panting and moaning, making her smile with delight as she returned to touching him delicately.

And she _was_ delicate. Everything about her was fine and fragile, yet she was deceivingly powerful and strong.

She was a gentle, curious creature, with thin and easily damaged skin that felt soothing and arousing as she pressed it against his. The scars and bruises and injuries that littered it told a tale of her strength, of what she had survived and the victories she had accomplished, and yet her almost passive nature, especially as she enticed and submitted to him, wet and heaving before him, reminded him of her fragility.

As she stretched her body under him, he surveyed her, noticing the details of every bone easily visible under the thin layer of skin; a reflection of her struggle to survive and find consumable food.

Even for the Yautja, the hunting was challenging. The _kainde amedha_ could destroy any eco system fully, killing all forms of life by direct injury, impregnation, or simple starvation.

She smiled and cooed, and he savored every detail of her small body. The nude human form was hardly something he had never truly paid attention to before, but he had also never associated with a human on such a level.

He found K'Shai captivating, her scent enticing, her touch arousing, and her strength and spirit appealing; and he had had more than enough delays in taking her.

He reached his other hand down to finally remove the last piece of his own coverings, his loin cloth of thick, well-tanned, fine hides that were braided and fringed in the traditional methods he preferred.

Though he immediately had a rush of relief from pressure with the cod armor removed, he was still eager to devoid himself of the loin cloth as well. He was already partially mounted over K'Shai as he leaned over the bed, feet still on the floor.

She watched his hand move to undo the wrappings and she inched back closer to him, extending her hands to meet his.

"Let me." She whispered intently.

R'chnt purred as K'Shai, breath held, unwrapped the loin cloth from around his waist and exposed every inch of his body to her full view. She heaved her chest and panted as she ran her hands along his abdomen and took in all the details on his body with her fingers and eyes.

His body shuddered again, slightly withdrawing defensively as she placed her softly shaking hands along the hard shaft of his erection and caressed it firmly from the tip to his body and underneath, between his thighs and back again a second and third time.

R'chnt growled deeply, overtaken with the unusual sensation to his most delicate and guarded area. She eased the tension out of his body with every gentle stroke and lulled him into such a deep ecstasy that he had relinquished control of his own body purely to her touch, trusting her on a previously untapped level of innate acceptance.

K'Shai cooed and groaned, slowly running her hands back and forth along his shaft, familiarizing herself with every fold of skin, every ridge that provided grip and texture, every quill that grew along his skin at the base of his now dripping rod, every curve of the bulge of testicles that sat below.

She gripped him tightly, and opened and closed her hands as she groped him, allowing her fingers to trail purposefully along the entire middle seam of his testicles and along the bottom of his shaft right up to the tip, slowly caressing him and building his arousal so much it almost hurt.

Dripping wet and filled with delight, R'chnt chuffed, growled, and purred, catching the ever heightened scent of K'Shai's lubed up body screaming its readiness to be taken. He slid his free hand along her face, delicately caressing the details of her lips as her mouth gaped and her eyes closed.

His hand guided itself down her chest, over her breasts, along her ribcage, smoothly gliding along the bony line of her hip until it found its way between her legs. He fingered her wet entrance and K'Shai howled in delight.

Her breathing quickened and her entire raging body surged with a single touch as she dropped back against the mattress to allow him better access. He could see her temperature raise and the sounds she made thrilled him, driving him wild.

K'Shai moved back further onto the bed, centering herself on the mattress completely and R'chnt crawled on top of her, knees on either side of her, palms down near her shoulders, stiff erection at the ready, dripping over her.

He lowered his mighty head and caressed her body again with his tusks, heaving a deep breath, drawing in all of her scent as she huffed and moaned below him.

He could feel his raging body, dripping with readiness, screaming to him to take her as his instincts were driving him to do. It was the first time in his life that he had a willing partner laying submissively before him, wet, heaving, and ready for mating, that was not challenging his dominance, threatening or inflicting physical harm, or displaying anger at his advances.

She trusted him fully and she waited, with quickly depleting patience, judging by the sudden increase in her heart rate, temperature, respiration and moaning sounds, for him to take her.

Naturally, his instincts told him to wrestle her down, bite into her neck, force her into enough submission to allow him access to her to get the job done as quickly and aggressively as possible. He assumed humans mated in similar ways; he could not imagine any species that did not.

But, he also observed K'Shai and her behaviors for long enough to know that she was not a female Yautja. She laid before him eyeing him invitingly, scanning his heaving chest and flared tusks as he repositioned himself above her, raising and lowering her own chest and moaning as she stroked the curving and flowing muscles that comprised his forearms with her tender touch.

R'chnt exhaled a long, slow breath, and shocked even himself to find his body reacting almost out of his control, doing something he never imagined. He slowed down, calmed himself and listened to K'Shai's wild heart beat pounding away.

He shifted his position and wedged one knee between her legs, which she readily spread for him and then brought his other knee between her thighs as she readied herself.

He scanned her body, watching her throb and pant and coo as his own erection pulsed. He wanted to take in the full effect of her body and he wanted to do it carefully and slowly. He surveyed every detail of her body, from her long dark hair to her fine skin streaked with still healing bruises and scars of old injuries intermixed with the damages from her most recent incident.

He dropped his head and brushed his tusks against her carefully, taking in her scents again, savoring them, so strong he could taste them as he absorbed every inch of the texture of her creamy soft skin with one more caress of his hand, eliciting more of the sounds she continued to make.

He moved his waist closer to hers and his erection, almost painful as it awaited the opportunity to find release, found her moist entrance easily. R'chnt reached a hand along the back of K'Shai's thigh and subtly repositioned her before he pushed himself into her.

To that point, every indication K'Shai offered R'chnt, from her gentle touches, to the warm feel of her lips, and the overpowering scent her body emitted, told him on an instinctual level that she was ready for mating. When he entered the tip of his shaft into her, she reacted in an unexpected way.

Her body, so loose, soft, and wet and inviting, suddenly went tense. She kicked her legs rigidly, sucking in a ragged and sharp breath and held it; an immediate and powerful reaction to an unfamiliar event happening to her body.

The reaction was almost similar to the way she experienced the pain of injury, but he knew he had not hurt her; he had barely even managed to put the tip of himself inside of her tight little entrance.

He realized she was reacting not out of challenge, defiance, or sudden change of interest, but from uncertainty and unfamiliarity, having never before been entered.

The male Yautja's body was built for keeping his mate in place. The nodules on his shaft ensured a secure hold when it was time for release into a female, and it was in a male's nature to plant his tusks firmly into the skin of his mate, to mark her body with signs of mating and to make her think twice about trying to fight away.

Despite his almost immediate reaction to respond to her aggressively, R'chnt restrained himself. He saw no sign that she was trying to go anywhere or put up a fight. Her sudden change in breathing, her increased heartrate, and the flush of heat that blossomed in response to the stimulation all told him she was simply uncertain and nervous.

"Relax, K'Shai," he said in a quiet whisper in his own language, for he knew she knew those words. He leaned down closer to her and nudged her face gently with his tusks, offering a reassurance. "Take ease."

He wanted to penetrate further into her, but he stopped and waited for her to relax.

"I will not hurt you." He assured her again.

She was ready, he knew, but she was apprehensive about the new sensation her body was experiencing.

Although it was not new to him to be the first to enter a female, it was certainly a new experience to be with an alien female barely one third his size. She was small and so was her entrance and when her body tensed, so did her tract and he felt her clamp down upon him uncomfortably.

He was comparatively much larger, but he was sure she would stretch to accommodate him, assuming he could get her to relax enough to allow further penetration without hurting her.

He waited, encouraging her again with gentle caresses of his tusks against her cheek and chest until he felt her body release the tension. Having never removed himself from as far into her as he made it, he simply waited until the moment presented himself and he penetrated slightly further, pausing again as she moaned in a high pitch and clamped her hands down hard onto his forearms.

She gaped her mouth and tipped her chin towards the ceiling, pressing her head back into the pillows below it as she stretched under him, clenching and releasing her grip to the sound of synchronized moaning with every slight pressure and release.

When each opportunity of relaxation offered itself, he pushed deeper into her, slowly and carefully, knowing for as delicate as her outer skin was, having been exposed to the wear and tear of war, the untouched skin inside her was far more delicate.

R'chnt became acutely aware of the pressure returning to encompass his erection once again as he penetrated deeper into her tight tract. Every ripple of skin that provided texture and sensation through the lubricating juices both bodies were releasing suddenly felt unlike anything he had experienced before.

As his shaft slowly made its way into the foreign and tight territory, the soft and warm skin of K'Shai's entrance tract clutched onto him as he pressed every raised nodule of skin along his rod deeper into her, an inch at a time.

K'Shai moaned and squealed and stretched her legs and changed the angle as he guided her. Her panting and groaning was matched in intensity by his own heaving breaths as he flared his tusks and pressed himself deeper and deeper, pausing less and less between each new thrust as he became more fully coated in her secretions and she relaxed more, allowing himself to slide more easily into the tight tract until he was fully engulfed into her.

He paused, watching her carefully for signs that he may have inadvertently caused her pain. He wanted to be careful with her; gentle as she had been with him, but he also did not truly know just what the threshold of her tolerance would be.

He knew he would need to always need to be careful how he handled her. When it came to activities like sparring, he had a much more natural sense of how much force he could use against an opponent such as K'Shai, however when it came to mating with her, he was in an uncharted domain.

He saw no signs of discomfort as she relaxed and held her breath for a moment. Only the sound of the rain outside beating down against the window filled the room over the joined beating of their hearts before he whispered to her.

" _Sei-h'tu_?"

She pressed her lips together in a thin smile, tipped her head back and stroked his arms, up to the shoulder delicately with her fingertips.

"I'm ready," she responded.

" _Do not_ tense up, K'Shai." He said in a quiet warning.

She nodded and licked her lips, biting down so hard she almost drew blood, but said nothing. With that, R'chnt slowly withdrew, eliciting a simply overpowering rush of sensations through both of them.

The feeling of his shaft dragging backwards through a space it barely fit into in the first place was like nothing he ever experienced and the deep bellow that he rumbled came immediately, and rivaled the intensity of K'Shai's own sudden, high pitched moaning.

R'chnt flared his tusks wider than he was quite sure he had ever flared them, even in direct challenge to the death of an opponent, for even nothing he had ever hunted had stirred him so wildly as the soft and tight little body of the human he chose to mate with did now.

He groaned in delight as he retracted himself nearly to the tip and paused only for a moment to allow his howling mate to adjust to the sensations she just experienced for the first time in her life, before he slid forward again to her high pitched whimpering, dripping wetness, and rocking hips.

To the tune of their joined moans, R'chnt retracted and inserted himself repeatedly, slowly, letting the both of them adjust to the rush of sensations that flooded them. With each new labor on his part, K'Shai seemed to relax more.

Her body, well coated in lubrication, was slowly beginning to adjust to his width and length and as it did, he thrust himself forward a little faster, a little harder, a little more feverishly each time. K'Shai raised her hips to meet his thrusts and rocked back just enough on each withdrawal to send a wave of ecstasy surging through his body each and every time.

He chuffed and grunted as she moaned and panted below him while he worked his pace into a steady rhythm, pumping and thrusting into her as their pleasured breathing matched in perfect synchrony.

After a short while, he shifted his hip angle ever so slightly and continued on. The effect was immediate and made them both bellow louder than before, as he tipped himself enough to penetrate deeper into her. His body built a thin layer of sweat as both their temperatures rose to elevated levels.

K'Shai moaned louder as R'chnt held his breath for a moment, listening to the sounds she was making, gauging her comfort level to the best that he could sense.

Her high pitched squeals, muffled by her clenched lips, were somewhere between pain and pleasure. Not so pain filled that he suspected he was hurting her or needed to stop, but yet overwhelmingly pleasurable enough to cause euphoria that was borderline paralyzing.

He pushed himself deeper into her and pulled himself smoothly back out, watching her flex and clench her hands highly around his arms and shoulders and release in rhythm with his actions as he felt his body churning to its culmination.

He was aware of the sound of his own hearts beating tremendously in his chest, so much so that he could practically feel them pumping the blood into his working erection, fueling it for the moment of release.

He was also intently aware of the sounds of his mate, paying careful mind to the amount of force he used and the sounds it elicited from her. Beyond that and the sound of the rain beating the portals to his right side across the small room, he was only vaguely aware of a light rap on the door to the dwelling; vaguely aware, and mostly uncaring, about the sound of the door opening and of the foot falls of K'Shai's companions in the apartment.

It mattered not to him. She was his and it would be known, by his scent all over her inside and out and by direct observation if need be, for he was being careful to leave her with no physical injuries from the experience to serve as visual markers of his conquest.

K'Shai, with her eyes shut, her body heaving in synch with his and her hands stroking his muscles, was too bound in ecstasy to notice or care about anything beyond the bed.

He wanted to keep her sustained in such a way for hours. He wanted to make her coo and moan and flex her small hands against his arms for as long as she could possibly stand it. He wanted to feel himself penetrating deep inside her, faster and more powerfully each time, until neither of them could breathe properly after the exertion.

He had succumbed fully to the sensations of her small fingernails dragging across his tough skin, barely leaving a mark, but tingling his body fully none the less. He felt her body shudder and tense and contract with raging orgasm as she reached her fullness and moaned and panted, matching his own chuffing and rumbling purr.

K'Shai's thighs tensed against his, her back arched, her body stretched, her fingers tightened just around his upper arms near the elbow, as her thumb dug into one side and her other fingers clamped down on the other side, and her head stretched back under him.

Her body bloomed with a surge of heat and her already tight tract suddenly swelled, compressing his ready and pulsating shaft so much it was almost painful as she orgasmed.

R'chnt's body could hold back no more. The feelings he experienced had lit a fire in him and through a rush of unfamiliar sensations that overwhelmed him, he released his load deep into her, the tiny nodules on his shaft getting decidedly firmer in the moments before orgasm, locking himself into K'Shai for assurance that he would successfully deposit his seeds as deeply as possible, and stimulating a heightened response in the both of them as he pumped a few dozen little forward thrusts during the process.

He huffed deeply once complete and held his position still, remaining inside her until she settled and eased herself back, melting into the bedding below her with a long, low, fully satiated groan as she relaxed from the climax.

R'chnt's body shuddered as he watched hers slink down and stretch loosely. She released her grip on his arms and he continued his purring, dropping his tusks to once again grope her bare chest before he retracted out of her once she had wound down enough. K'Shai moaned and winced, feeling the length of him slowly pull fully out of her.

R'chnt lowered himself over her, pressing his body into hers, but still supporting himself above her so as not to crush her. She caressed him and kissed him, fully relaxed under the overshadowing bulk of his body, warm and soothed by the purr rising from him, the emanations of his body heat and the slowly dissolving throb of his passing orgasm.

He pulled away from her, tucking in tightly next to her on the sleeping bunk and she immediately pressed herself as close into him as she could, wrapping her arm over his body, feeling his warmth, expressing her contentment and pleasure with a soft, relaxed groan and gentle stroking of his abdomen and hip, before she fell asleep.

He watched her sleep, wrapped up against him, for hours, not daring to move or disturb her until he had to.

When he did slip out from under her, she was sleeping so soundly she never flinched. R'chnt gathered up the armor he had strewn throughout the small living accommodations and as he did, he glanced at the pieces once piled on the floor next to the elevated sleeping mat.

He suddenly realized he was more relaxed than he had been in a long time, even though he was removed of his armor on the alien world for the first time since he had arrived to it.

Again without rousing her from her clearly much needed rest, R'chnt returned to K'Shai's side, slipping himself under her small arm, though he remained awake as he reviewed a map of the area that his computer displayed.

He assured himself that he and his group, along with the other two packs working in conjunction with his own in the region, had managed to clear the area completely of the vermin they warred against. He had intended to give his group a much needed rest before they headed out again, for all were weary and need of a break.

He tipped his head to glance at K'Shai again, stroking her bare back and side gently and purred quietly. He had already planned to ensure her place amongst his clan, and over the break, he would finalize that necessity to assure that she would have a chance amongst his people if he were to die on this hunt.

He sat in quiet contemplation for hours, until the pre-dawn light began to chase away the darkness and, relaxed in the still and silence with only the sounds of their breathing to focus on, R'chnt also shut his eyes for some sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

She roused from the bed with the brightness of dawn's light filling the room and although R'chnt was usually an extremely light sleeper, he was sound asleep.

She tiptoed in an earnest effort not to wake him, but he stirred with the sound of a beep from his armor that made her jump from the opposite end of the apartment as she surveyed the hallway outside the door. The sound was soft, but in the still silence of the early morning, it echoed like a blaring alarm

R'chnt informed his group of the agenda for the day and stood.

He had barely slept, but it was enough for his needs after such a long day of rest on the last rotation. He had noticed the humans' need to sleep for hours and hours, far longer than any full grown Yautja and K'Shai was no different.

She had slept soundly the entire night, comforted in his arms, without moving.

When he rose and joined her as she made use of the bathroom, with nearly as much eagerness and pleasure as she displayed in orgasm, he smirked in amusement as he watched her and tended to his own needs, though with less vested pleasure.

When she returned to the bed, she retrieved a bottle of water from the stand alongside it and offered him a drink before she sipped from it.

"Do you have any of that jerky?" She asked.

He had come to learn that she called the meat he carried in a satchel _jerky_ , whatever that was, and knew immediately what she was talking about.

The rations of meat were from a large, commonly hunted creature found on all of the worlds in his system. The animal was big enough to feed an entire hunting pack for more than ten rotations and the strips of meat were cured to last for weeks.

K'Shai took a large chunk of the food he offered her and bit into it, immediately shutting her eyes and moaning. Even eating elicited pleasure for her, in addition to urinating and mating.

He watched her in contemplative amusement as she ate the meat and he reached for a canister from his back pack. Her eyes lit up as soon as she heard the click of the top opening and he offered it to her before he took any of his own.

"This," she said, raising the canister slightly after she swallowed several gulps, "is the best stuff I've ever had in my life."

He nodded, accepting the compliment, although he silently thought that there were so many more, far better, experiences he wanted to expose her to if he was given the chance.

He did consider the drink for a moment, though. A'gha fruit had quickly become a staple in his and all the others' diet and K'Shai clearly delighted in the taste of it.

The fruit, eaten whole or juiced, was hearty enough to sustain any body for an indefinite period of time, and with the lack of available hunting prey on the overrun and decimated world, any hunter would be foolish to let his supply of it run too low.

Sitting quietly, he watched her take her fill of the drink once again, his eyes slowly surveying her thin and battered body as she stretched, arching her back and extending her arms, fingers crossed, into the air above her head.

She smiled as she pulled her body back together and caught his gaze shifting over her breasts and down her abdomen, across her thighs and back up while he inhaled deeply, his chest quietly raising and falling.

"What are you thinking?" She asked of him as she watched him watch her.

"I will teach you to hunt, for food." He said, eyeing her thin frame.

K'Shai nodded graciously, but whispered softly, in a playful tone. "Maybe not just yet."

She let her eyes drop from his commanding facial features to the defined muscles of his chest and abdomen, to his thighs and the extension hanging between them. She pulled herself to her knees and palms and crawled close to him, across the bed.

R'chnt clicked softly, piqued by her approach, catching the unmistakable scent her body emitted. It aroused him before she even made contact, but the feel of her hands pressing against his chest and shoulders and stroking his hair made his subtle clicking turn to a not-so-subtle aroused growl.

She leaned into him, wrapped her arms across his wide shoulders and around his neck, tenderly stroking his beaded tresses while she kissed his cheek, pressing her lips along his lower mandible, tracing the powerful line of his strong facial frame back towards his neck, stirring every quill with her tongue as she did.

She felt his body shudder under her touch, like he was forcibly letting go of the constant tension and high alertness, as if it were unnatural and uncomfortable and took a concentrated effort on his part to do so.

He teetered before her, sitting on the edge of the bed like a rock solid statue, swaying between the option of collapsing completely in an oozing heap or continuing on in an apprehensive and rigid display.

She pressed herself into him and helped him make the decision, as she delicately rubbed her hand between his thighs, stroking the skin of his inner thigh lightly enough to provoke him, teasingly enough to leave him wanting more.

He rocked back under her and shifted himself more centered onto the bed, allowing himself to release a deep exhale, forcing his tense body to ease up under her as she groped him.

She leaned forward, pressing her lips onto his body as her hands swayed across the definition of muscles of his abdomen.

His gray skin was firm, more solid feeling than a human body, and although it was textured, her fingers still glided smoothly across it. She brushed her fingertips over old faded scars, feeling the difference in the healed seams versus the undamaged skin around it.

She vaguely thought for a moment about the creatures that had made them, wondering if any of them were more horrific than the nightmarish _bugs_ she had come to know, that he called the _kainde amedha_ , the _hard meat_.

She leaned over him, tipped her head into his, kissing his cheek again and again while her hands rubbed along his body and groped his stiffening erection.

She felt him immediately, instinctively withdraw for a brief moment, a subtle, but noticeable display as before of his discomfort with being touched there, followed immediately by an equally subtle hint of acceptance.

She stroked him gently until she was sure she had him eased into a state of relaxation.

She moved her lips across his lower left mandible again, allowing the broken edge of the tusk that capped it to whisk across her cheek and under her chin as she pulled back and sat straight atop him, dripping with ready wetness between her thighs as she straddled him.

Only briefly did she also think to remind herself to hear the story of how he broke the strong tusk, before she raised her body off him, shifted her position and gripped the firm mass of his erection in her hands as she lowered her waist onto it, sliding her lubricated tract onto his waiting, equally lubricated shaft.

She slowly lowered herself into place, returning both of her hands to the very top of his hip bones, which she could just feel moving under the powerful muscles and thick skin that covered them, as she settled completely down upon him and he began to match the slow pace of her rocking hips with his own thrusting.

She moaned with delight and panted and tried to stifle higher pitched groans for risk of her voice echoing through the quiet corridors of the apartment building in the early morning hours as he thrust himself into her a little faster each time.

R'chnt's deep rumbling growl filled her ears, and though she stifled her own shrill squeals, she barely even pondered whether or not his voice was echoing anywhere beyond the bedroom; it just did not seem to matter.

He settled into a powerful thrusting pace as his arousal reached its fullest and his growling purr was joined in synch with his working breaths, and matched only by her own groaning and panting as he pumped into her, bouncing her body over his hips with each upward thrust.

K'Shai rocked her hips in time with his movements, tipping her head back and gaping her mouth wide as she shut her eyes and allowed the feeling of his hardness sliding in and out of her to overwhelm her until she held her breath just to focus solely on the sensation.

R'chnt's shaft was lined with small nodules, not too unlike the rippling bubby texture of his skin, only smaller.

As he worked himself back and forth inside her, slipping his full erection completely into her so she could feel the subtle ridges on the tip of his shaft deep in her, and drawing it back out again until the tip was nearly out of her, then pressing it back in again, the small nodules that lined his shaft in a few rows that ended just below the ridged skin of the tip, grew progressively more pronounced as they hardened.

The sensation did not hurt K'Shai, but it did certainly serve to stimulate both of them. As he neared his own climax, K'Shai felt her body surge and tingle from deep within, brought to full raging orgasm that made her eyes loll into the back of her head as he continued his smooth, gliding penetrations before releasing himself into her with a completely satisfied moan accompanied by a series of smaller, faster thrusts, harder than all others as he rumbled with a deep, animalistic sound that added to the vibrations she already felt from within her.

Her body surged to the bones, shuddering in overpowering delight as R'chnt cooed and purred below her, completely relaxed; the tension from his constant state of alert awareness of his surrounding and heightened arousal both slipping away.

It was hours later when they both revived themselves from a deep slumber, R'chnt sleeping more soundly than K'Shai had ever seen him.

She stirred carefully awake, hoping to not disturb him with her movements, as she listened to his deep breathing. He was snoring. At least, the low grumble he produced, which sounded just a few decibels lower than the purr he made during moments of relaxation resembled a snore, she thought.

She watched him for a moment, a thin smile on her face. It was a rare sight to see him so at ease, asleep.

It did not last long. K'Shai barely shifted her legs to sit up on the edge of the bed and R'chnt immediately was up and on his feet, glancing around as though he had heard a battle raging without him.

Unlike K'Shai, who woke slowly and took her time in his company to stretch, inhale deeply and slowly ease away the woozy feelings that followed a good sleep, something she had not experienced in more months than she could recall before meeting R'chnt, he was up from his deep slumber immediately, clear headed, jumping up with alarm and displaying no signs of relaxation. R'chnt was back to full on tension.

K'Shai watched him, a little taken aback by his sudden start, pondering if rigid alarm was simply as natural to him as the skin on his body. He suddenly seemed to realize how much daylight had gotten away from him and was armored up within minutes.

K'Shai snapped in a few pieces of his armor into place, but mostly watched him dress so quickly it did not seem possible to put on all the complex panels and weapons and connect the entire system together as fast as he did.

With the final connections in place that powered the shoulder cannon and firing mechanisms that he could control in three different manners, from his arm gauntlet computer on the left arm, from one bony looking pendant he wore around his neck that, as it turned out, was not bone at all, or from hidden controls inside his helmet which he operated with his tusks in a wildly efficient use of the additional Yautja extremities, the entire armor beeped and lit up, sending a flicker of blue electrical current over his entire body.

For a fraction of a moment he looked like he was completely engulfed in static electricity, or lightening.

The armor pieces itself, K'Shai thought, seemed like they had a life of their own. Indeed, they could respond through a series of hidden switches that were essentially motion activated, giving the appearance that the armor operated under its own free will or through some kind of telepathy.

Even though R'chnt had begun lightly familiarizing her with the functionality of the armor pieces, so she had a vague understanding of how it all worked, it still seemed hard to grasp how his essential hunting necessities, the protective pieces that defended, guided, and provided for him, operated so seamlessly.

Matching his haste, and assuming that R'chnt hurried so because he did not want to leave his group Leaderless for an extended period of time, K'Shai dressed and followed him back out the fire escape window through the living room, and up the grated metal stairs to the roof of the brick building.

She quietly considered the notion that he had gotten so comfortable and relaxed with her he actually let his duties as Leader lapse, even if only for a few hours, which to her did not seem like much. Surely, his group could manage without their Leader for the course of about fourteen hours according to her watch.

Though, she did realize as she stepped onto the roof and found the other eight members of the group mostly spread out keeping watch or talking and eating, that she had never once seen R'chnt return to the ships in orbit for supplies, as she knew others in his group did.

She also had not seen R'chnt leave his group to hunt for food, rather, that task was usually assigned to one of the other hunters. She quietly pondered if he had broken some kind of protocol which would account for his hurried mannerisms upon waking.

She noticed that he tensed up even more as his underlings eyed him. He flared his mandibles just wide enough to indicate that he was on alert.

R'chnt could not help but to swell a bit before his pack as he rejoined them on the roof. He had succumbed to the waves of pure pleasure K'Shai had induced in him and he relaxed next to her, watching her fall asleep after a second round of mating that had both thrilled and eased him, and wore her out.

He did not even recall drifting to sleep himself and when she stirred and awoke him, he could barely believe the single sun of the world had been up long enough it was nearly halfway to its peak of rotation.

He imagined his group would be questioning his whereabouts, not so much his activities, for the scent of his musk when he departed their company the night before would have told them all they needed to know about his intentions, but his lack of return for so many extended hours would no doubt have sent a ripple of curiosity and doubt through them.

They would wonder if perhaps he had succumbed to his injuries to account for his lack of return. Perhaps, he postulated as he hurriedly dressed himself with K'Shai's gentle help, they might think she had beaten him so fully he could no longer move, which given the relaxed feel he had succumbed to, was not too far from the truth.

He knew they would curiously speculate as to what it would be like to mate with the small human.

They were curious about her, but knew their place. Though, K'Shai did not seem to mind at all when the rest of the group displayed their curiosity outwardly.

They knew their place with R'chnt and they knew that contact with her in any manner would result in dismemberment or death, and if there had been any doubt to that, the events of the night she was attacked would settle that matter for both the Yautja group as well as the humans.

K'Shai behaved differently than any female Yautja ever would. She readily welcomed the group's curious questions and tried her best to answer in Yautjan.

Still, R'chnt knew they would assume she was as aggressive in mating as any female, and given his injuries, he imagined that after this length of time, the group would already be mulling over who might be daring, or foolish, enough to make a claim as Leader.

Naturally, that title would fall immediately to W'rsa if there were no other challengers. In the event of R'chnt's death, W'rsa, who had hunted with R'chnt for two centuries and trained with him, would stand to fill his place.

He imagined W'rsa, who was the only other of the group that K'Shai seemed well at ease with, might also make a move for her as well.

He presented himself on the roof top and flared his mandibles as he straightened his back tense enough to add more height to his already formidable frame.

He felt a rush of pride take control and he strode smoothly towards his group, confidently strutting across the roof top, allowing each hunter he approached to take careful note as K'Shai strode readily next to, and just slightly behind him, following his lead.

R'chnt did not often speak of his conquests on the hunting field, or in mating. His scars from both activities would speak for him, and he was equally as proud of them as he was of K'Shai who stood so close to him now.

Though he had known it to happen from time to time, if she was inebriated on _c'ntlip_ enough perhaps, it was normally highly uncommon for a Yautja female to spend any length of time with a male after mating, and certainly not to mate with them again.

Strutting powerfully enough to be even more imposing than normal, R'chnt worked hard at hiding the fact that he was still feeling utterly relaxed and pleasured with lingering satisfaction by the version of mating K'Shai offered him.

His body still tingled with an unrelenting echo of her hands caressing him, gripping his shaft and stroking it, and putting her lips to him as he mounted, covered, and thrust into her. He felt a sense of pride having experienced her as a mate and as he surveyed his group, he could not help but to flare his mandibles and glare at them all, eyeing them for any challenge to his conquest.

K'Shai had wanted him. She laid herself down willingly and through gentle caresses and tender touches, she stimulated him in ways he had never even imagined.

He was wise enough to know that no creature could ever experience all there was in the vastness of the universe to experience, although it was a massive fault of many brash young Yautja who were convinced they already had.

R'chnt silently credited himself with a wealth of experience, having hunting on nearly fifty worlds, more than ten times the number that most other Yautja would even fly by in their lives, let alone hunt upon.

The mere fact that she laid with him not once, but twice, overwhelming him with pleasure each time was something he had never even considered a possible experience.

He watched the group before him now, carefully judging their reactions, to see who might take too keen an interest in her, or question him. They had long since become accustomed to K'Shai, and the rotations past that had led up to this had clued them all in to R'chnt's desires for her as a mate and K'Shai's own reciprocated urging.

The familiarity was a good thing, and it reminded the group that they all had their places and that so did K'Shai, though R'chnt knew he would need to ensure she had a place in his Clan.

He glanced at W'rsa, noticing how his eyes flickered to K'Shai for a little too long before they flicked back to him, and silently considered the chain of events that might occur if he were to be cut down on this hunt.

He had hunted the _kainde amedha_ long enough to know what he was doing, long enough to have developed a sense of cunning around them that others had not, long enough to make risky moves appear easy as he cut the hive queens down on his own, but he was also wise enough to know that when the p _aya_ called a warrior to them, there was little choice on the matter.

R'chnt had fully intended to have a long and fruitful life with K'Shai at his side, but he also knew he had to be aware of every possibility. He would handle those arrangements in time soon enough. For now, he turned to K'Shai.

"We shall hunt now." He said simply, loud enough for all to hear.

His brief statement informed the group of his intent while silently telling them they should all wait for his return, and simultaneously combined with his extended arm gesturing her forward down the other fire escape on the far side of the roof, told her she was going with him.

R'chnt moved in behind her, the metal stairwell creaking and wobbling slightly as he stepped onto it.

She found herself looking down the five stories through each consecutive grated metal landing, and wondering if the thing would hold until they got to the bottom. If it did fall, she assumed he could manage to somehow scoop her to safety and climb the building wall instead.

She realized as she did finally touch the sidewalk, that she was almost a little disappointed the fire escape had not collapsed, just so she could see how he would handle it. She watched him descend to the sidewalk behind her, jumping over the railing off the second floor and thumping to the ground powerfully.

Four men, keeping watch around a burning barrel on the corner of the street, about a half a block away locked their eyes on the pair and stopped their conversation mid-sentence as they eyed her and the alien that loomed behind her.

R'chnt growled, evaluating each of the alien males for any display of aggression or challenge, for anyone who might reach for one of the low-powered projectile weapons slung around their sides and take aim, for anyone who might glance to or question K'Shai in a tone he did not approve of.

K'Shai eyed the males only briefly and turned away in silence as R'chnt directed her with a sweeping gesture of his hand. She said nothing as they walked and walked, far out of the edge of town.

Still in a cleared zone, there would be no danger of running into any _kainde amedha_ , R'chnt confirmed with a few clicks on his computer panel. The cleared area was vast enough to provide a safe buffer to allow his group rest, allow some time for himself with K'Shai and also offer up the opportunity to provide her with a little much needed food source hunting.

He had noted that she seemed more to be a scavenger rather than an active hunter when it came to food and resources. Her behaviour as such also accounted for why his group thought of her as some kind of pathetic little animal unable to defend itself when she first had approached them so wary and apprehensive, hunkered down and timid.

He felt a little guilty for having shared that thought of her, and allowed himself to reflect on how she had humbled him from those thoughts with her displays of intelligence, strength, boldness and willingness to trust him.

She followed his lead and direction more sharply and with less hesitation than some of the students he had trained over the years, and had convinced others of her own kind to do the same despite their obvious apprehension.

Now, she did exactly as he explained, stepped as he showed her, listened to every word he said with unwavering attention. She made mistakes, but she was trying, and her desire to do as he said, follow his lead, and ultimately please him, already put her leaps and bounds above most Yautja students.

He had playfully engaged her in some light sparring during other rest breaks. Mostly, he did it to gauge her skills and see what she knew, which he discovered within seconds, was very little when it came to handling weapons, and even less when it came to hand to hand fighting.

Despite having survived for so long on her decimated world, she lacked finesse with even the weak projectile weapons the _oomans_ clung to so dearly. She did slightly better with the plasma caster he had provided her, but the need for her to learn was obvious, and R'chnt was naturally inclined to teach her.

He had learned well on his own hunts, grew wise from his experiences, and many would say that he displayed the natural characteristics of a true Leader and teacher from the beginning.

He had always remained respectful of his own Leader, an attentive student who had quickly learned to keep one eye on the opponent before him and another eye on the situation around him. There was a subtle edge that the better hunters displayed, and R'chnt had learned well, when he was very young and his own hunt Leader had displayed incredible prowess in every action he performed.

When he had accomplished his first _chiva_ and earned the mark of a blooded hunter amongst his Clan, earning his place, he learned a tough lesson that day that taught him the difference between brashness and wisdom, the sometimes cloudy line between bravery and foolishness. It was a lesson he learned well and bore visible evidence of, as a tell-tale reminder.

Although others had always credited him with a mentality geared towards teaching, he refuted the very notion of it for a century until he took on his first student and word spread that R'chnt was now willing to accept his place.

He had taught so many youngsters up through their first _chivas_ and many other accomplished hunters to further their skill, that he had no choice but to realize he was exactly as the others called him.

Now, to teach K'Shai came on an almost instinctive level.

Her heavily lacking skill proved that she needed to learn and learn well. In order to have a place in his Clan, K'Shai would need to be a hunter. For her, there would be no other way and he knew it.

He would teach her all she would need to know, and by the way she mimicked his actions, followed his instructions and tried as hard as she could to do as he taught, he knew she would be a worthy student.

Her injuries and the glimmer of angry fury in her eye that reflected the struggles she had been through and survived were already symbols to him that she had passed the _chiva_.

Unknown to her, K'Shai had already endured much of the rigors that young Yautja experience before their own blooding hunt to prove they have a place in the Clan, but she had much to learn.

He slowed his pace to a crouched creep and fell silent, gesturing to K'Shai, who tailed him so closely her chin almost bumped into his shoulder armor when he stopped, with only hand signals.

K'Shai looked past the nearly black metallic armor of R'chnt's right shoulder and her eyes quickly settled on a pair of does scouring the ground as they walked, sucking up the overgrown grass of a lawn at the back of a long since abandoned warehouse.

Whenever possible, anyone in her group would hunt, kill, and cook animals. As supplies like living essentials, medicines, and precious food became harder and harder to find in stores they raided, the group quickly found themselves living off a diet of canned goods, and eventually having to ration those so heavily that living in a constant state of malnutrition edging on flat out starvation had become the norm.

Eventually, no animal, if unimpregnanted with a seed of the Hellspawn itself, was off the menu.

K'Shai briefly thought back to the first time squirrel was offered up for her to eat, like a kabob, blackened on a stick over a campfire, and she nearly vomited at the notion.

Eventually, squirrel and pigeon became something like a delicacy that everyone savored, and were only overshadowed by the even rarer fine dining that consisted of rabbit, raccoon, or possum.

Once, during the winter, a huge protest from the group arose when a stray dog was recovered, but even those who voiced their most profound objections still allowed hunger to override their standings when they smelled its meat cooking.

It was a lucky time another outing that the group found, of all things, a lone angus steer idling happily near the ghostly remnants of a traffic jam on a highway. It seemed like some kind of ironic shame in a way to kill the thing, but it was a lucky break, especially since it did not have a gestating alien larvae in it.

But deer; K'Shai had not seen deer in more months than she could recall. The group did once spot an elk running down a street; no doubt a lucky escapee from a zoo.

The witty animal managed to evade its human would-be hunters, though that was near the beginning of the downward spiral of life, and the group was not yet so capable of making kills.

R'chnt hovered in silence, offering no direction, and K'Shai assumed he was holding position to allow her to show him her hunting skills. She immediately reached for the rifle slung over her shoulder and crept alongside R'chnt, who began a low rumble.

"What?" She questioned softly as he put his hand over the barrel of the weapon and forced the tip down towards the ground.

He withdrew a compacted weapon from the back of his armor, one that she did not even realize he had. It was a thin spear that was quickly and silently extended at the press of a button which he showed her.

The weapon was longer than an arrow, but not by much, and certainly nowhere as long as the larger spear R'chnt also carried, which when fully extended was taller than he.

" _Hul'tah_ ," he said in a whisper so low she almost would not have heard it if she had not been holding her breath.

She did as he directed and stayed put, watching. He crept like a lion through the brush, stalking his prey.

R'chnt stayed low, well-hidden, downwind as he had told her she should always be. He never even left the tree line; just moved to a position that offered him the best shot and lobbed the thin weapon through the air with precision and ease.

The intended target dropped to the ground while the other animal, spooked by the sudden thud of its companion darted away.

"Ok, that was impressive." She said with a smile as she watched R'chnt hover over his kill and attached a tether around its legs.

"I will teach you. Watch then do." He said simply.

K'Shai patted the rifle at her hip. "I can barely get one with this."

"Too noisy, your weapons. Draws too much attention." R'chnt grumbled, unimpressed. "Silence is a weapon."

"You must stalk silent _and_ kill silent. Leave no traces, K'Shai. You will learn to hunt like Yautja."

He spoke smoothly while he crouched over the deer carcass, wrapping the limbs together slowly, his large hands working easily to secure his kill, but going slow enough to allow K'Shai to see everything he was doing.

Even after the kill, she could not help but notice how he moved with purpose, power, and deadly intent.

When he stood, holding the tie around the legs of the animal with one hand, he guided K'Shai away with the other. They walked on quietly, R'chnt only stopping from time to time to scan the woods.

K'Shai quickly learned to keep a close watch on him and when he stopped to listen, she did the same, although she always had the sense that while she was straining to determine if anything was out there, he already knew.

She followed him as he led her down a street, through an expanse of unkempt lawns that backed up a long abandoned industrial park and out into the woods beyond them where he once again crouched to a halt, this time at the edge of a river where he handed her the very same spear he had used to impale the deer that he placed down on the rocks nearby.

She took the weapon with a curious smile and R'chnt turned his helmeted head onto the river, wading in softly. She followed along and they came to a halt on a flat patch of rocks.

In a moment, R'chnt pointed towards the stream and K'Shai studied it carefully, looking through the surface, past the reflecting sun, and spotted some large fish, carp, idly swimming past.

Following his direction, although admittedly with much reservation and a sense of embarrassment at her inability, K'Shai did her best to curb her frustration and spear the fish. Eventually, after what seemed like hours, her frustration got the best of her.

"Patience, K'Shai." R'chnt barked at her agitated outburst.

"Show me how to do this." She said adamantly.

"I am showing you."

"No, I mean," she emphasized as she pressed the spear towards him. "Like you actually get one."

R'chnt clicked, crouched, and looked over the carcass on the shoreline. "I got that."

K'Shai sighed, feeling a little defeated. He killed a skittish deer from fifty meters and she could barely spear a slow moving fish five feet in front of her. She had half a mind to unsling her rifle and start shooting the fish, but R'chnt's words about utilizing silent weapons echoed in her head and she huffed sharply and tried again, turning towards the water.

She lobbed the spear once again and instead of thudding dully to the bottom of the river for her to retrieve it, it pierced the scaly hide of the large fish she spotted.

"Aha!" She howled in amazed victory and turned to R'chnt with a brimming smile.

"Good, K'Shai, good." R"chnt approved. "Now, do it again."

She retrieved her kill and smirked, feeling as though it was merely a lucky break that took half the afternoon to achieve, but she turned back to it once again and in a few minutes, had speared another carp, followed by a third, then fourth.

"Ok!" She said excitedly, "I think I am getting the hang of this. It's kind of _fun_."

He stood and dipped his head, bowing his biohelmet to her approvingly, then clamped a powerful hand on her shoulder and directed her and her kills for the day, back to the shore.

She followed along with him back through the woods as the late afternoon sun slung lower and lower in the sky. R'chnt consistently scanned the area, stopping from time to time to focus his senses, and each time he did, K'Shai tried her best to try to perceive anything around them. On the third time he halted, he glanced down to her, turning the sleek metal cheeks of his biohelmet her direction.

"What are you aware of right now?"

She stopped and contemplated her surroundings. She took in a deep breath and held it, straining her ears to hear anything she could past the rustling of leaves of the trees above her.

"I hear birds." She said with attentiveness. "I hear the wind rustling the leaves, and I think maybe I hear voices echoing. I know we're close to the camp. I smell the fish and the blood of the deer."

"What are _you_ aware of?" She asked, looking up at the helmeted head towering two feet above her own.

"Eight birds, two small ground animals, two _ooman_ males there," he pointed towards a location behind K'Shai, "three more there," he added pointing in the direction they were heading, "all out of sight, but near enough to be smelled and heard. Many scents in the air," he indicated another direction, "and…" he paused and turned to look at her.

"What?" She said quickly.

He brushed her face gently with two fingers and a quiet clicking sound began to emanate from under the helmet.

K'Shai felt her body shudder as he stepped in tightly to her and she shut her eyes, tipping her head into his hand. She reached her own hand up and caressed his fingers and palm against her skin.

R'chnt's body pressed so closely to hers that the little bone necklaces that draped down his chest bumped into her head. His clicking turned into a familiar purring sound as he reached towards her with his free hand and lifted her off her feet.

K'Shai gasped in excited anticipation and pressed her head against the side of his helmet. He tipped his head back and she kissed under his jaw, her hands stroking the bare areas his chest armor did not cover as R'chnt backed her up against a tree.

"Now I smell something." She whispered with a soft moan between pressing her lips to him. "It smells sweet… a bit… musky."

" _Dai-Shui,"_ he said softly.

"Die-she", she repeated in a poor attempt to mimic Yautja infliction.

"Smells so good," K'Shai mumbled through a trembling breath as R'chnt slid his hand off her face, down her chest and lightly dragged his claws over the waistline of her jeans.

He had caught her scent in the air, mixed in with the other scents of the alien world, from the sap in the trees to the blood of the beast he dragged behind him and the stench of the _ooman_ males carried on the wind as well.

Her scent gripped his attention the most and as he became aware of his body's own musk building, he could not help but wonder if K'Shai was even aware that she smelled like she was in a constant state of mating readiness, enough to drive his own body into a state of activity he barely even achieved during mating seasons.

K'Shai kissed him and ran her hands along his body, sliding her fingers under his own armor belt just the same as he had slid his own under the restrictive garments she wore around her waist.

R'chnt's subtle purr amplified and was overpowered with a distinctly aroused growl as K'Shai's voice lifted in excitement, the scent of her body lingering into him, thrilling him.

He put her down as she indicated and with eager haste, they both were quickly devoid of their lower coverings. K'Shai removed her upper garments quickly, with a raspy breath as R'chnt lifted her once again, one hand gripping her under each of her thighs as he positioned himself between her spread knees.

She wrapped her calves around his hips, her heels dangling behind his buttocks as he pressed into her, erection full, hard, dripping.

Her back was supported against a tree and she moaned hoarsely and deeply as she felt him penetrate her, slowly and smoothly at first, allowing her to adjust to the angle and feel, then deeper again and again, faster and harder with each forward movement of his hips as he emitted a low, steady rumble, accented by the occasional loud snarl between his own gasping breaths.

Mating with her was like nothing he had ever even imagined experiencing. Her soft skin against his thick and weathered body soothed him. Her small frame against his large bulk willingly and readily accepted his dominance without question.

The scent of her aroused state filling his nasal passages and the sounds of her moaning as she submitted to the pleasures he put in her, tingled and aroused his body in ways he had never felt before.

K'Shai tipped her head back and huffed in time with the rhythym of his thrusts, feeling him press deeper and deeper into her with each forward shift of his hips.

He suspended her easily, thrusting himself up into her with the familiar deep, rumbling growl deep within his chest that K'Shai had quickly heard was a sound he only made when he was aroused for pleasure.

She gripped her hands over his powerful forearms, clinging to the armor that protected them as every muscle in her own body flexed with each panting breath.

Every action he did, K'Shai knew, from something as simple as tethering a line around the legs of his kill, to the way he moved in his noticeably stalking and calculating way, was done with purpose, control, and commanding power so smoothly executed it seemed to be chiseled into every fiber of his body.

His confidence and dominance reassured her; it was reliable, true, and unquestionable. She knew how many different ways he could have killed her at any point over the entire stretch of the last seven months, and in the process she learned his immeasurable self-control.

She knew as he growled like a wild beast, pumping furiously into her, riled up into the heated throws of pure pleasure as his body fueled him into a sort of unstoppable need to complete the event, that he still maintained his composure and his control on some level.

It was so fully engrained into him that it came just as naturally to him as the guttural growls that he filled her ears with. He held her firmly, but never even so tight as to cause a sore muscle, let alone actually scratch or puncture her skin with his talons. He would caress or grab her head, but never so harshly as to damage her in any way.

As he filled her with the result of his delight, she moaned and gasped, her own body surging into powerful orgasm, spurred on by the scent of his musk, the heat of his body, and the hot fluid that filled her.

She slouched her back loosely against the tree, taking deep breath after deep breath, her eyelids dangling half closed, her lips relaxed into a softness that reflected her ecstasy, her fingers slowly groping his forearm gauntlets, his elbows above them, his powerful biceps, flexed and rigid from supporting her, his shoulders and his chest where she rested her palms over his immensely heated pectoral muscles.

R'chnt growled, overcome with a wave of pleasure as he felt K'Shai's soft skin against his.

He supported her from underneath with both hands, and though the rush of euphoric ecstasy that surged into him charged him into an aroused state of tension, he remained highly aware of just how much pressure he used against her.

He did not want to damage her, but he very much wanted to have her rip his helmet off so he could sink his tusks into her exposed shoulder as the final throws of his arousal filled his body with a rippling tide.

He resisted one urge in exchange for the overpowering sensation of another one and remained motionless for a few long moments afterwards, holding her, shifting his body closer to her, his multi-tonal growl turning into a gentle purr that he could not ever recall sharing with a female, before he finally eased himself out of her to her wincing and gasped moans.

In short order, they returned to the camp before the evening light had completely left the sky, and K'Shai proudly offered up the results of her first spear-fishing lesson to her group, along with a quartered cut of the deer R'chnt had killed.

He sliced it up before he delivered it back to his group and she thanked him for being willing to oblige her request, halfway suspecting there was little he would not do for her when properly rewarded.

Lewis, Carlos and the others had not had a true meal in weeks. They had found a valuable stock of canned vegetables, soups, and even a few cans of pasta complete with meatballs during a lucky raiding run three weeks earlier, but fresh meat was a delight few and far between, and while the Yautja never shared their kills before, K'Shai had always at the very least stashed away a healthy portion of whatever meat of the day they had and a'gha slices for the children.

The group eyed her in shock, seeing her approach with a spear full of fish, and a nearly seven and half foot tall Yautja looming just feet behind her, carrying a bleeding deer carcass over one shoulder and a freshly dismembered roast section and hind limb in the other hand, but their astonishment soon turned to delight upon the realization that she was delivering the food to them.

R'chnt dropped the meat in a rather undignified fashion on the ground and growled something in his native tongue, which K'Shai nodded an acknowledgement of.

"Aren't you going to stay for some?" Lewis asked as K'Shai turned to walk away after a short while, having surrendered the spoils of her hunt to them with a quick synopsis of how she had spent her day.

"No." She said with a simple smile and glanced her eyes in the direction of the Yautja group, far above them on the roof of the apartment building.

She had her share of venison in the company of R'chnt, tucked so close into his side that he encompassed her with his arm as he ate until she began to doze off, secure and warm in the crook of his arm.

When she awoke sometime in the early morning hours, she was in her bed in the apartment she had commandeered.

She did not remember getting there, but she eyed her surroundings quickly, realizing that R'chnt was sitting on the foot of the bed, biohelmet on, pressing buttons on his left computer panel, taking readings, or scanning maps of the area, perhaps sending a communication, she did not know; his computer panel could perform a multitude of functions and was in many ways, the life and the death of the hunter.

He clicked loudly, the sound echoing out under the metal head ware and reverberating in the quiet apartment.

It was an unusual and intimidating enough sound to make anyone suddenly tense in agitation and fear upon hearing it, but K'Shai was slowly beginning to distinguish the slight tonal differences in the clicking sounds that the Yautja made.

Some of the sounds were produced in the throat, like an agitated gurgling, while some clicking noises were made by directly tapping the tusks of the mandibles together. Different sized mandibles created different sounds.

A throaty clicking was likely to be followed by a deadly blow, while a tusk clicking was a sound of contentment, concentration, or curiosity. R'chnt's tusks made a deep clicking, like a woodpecker strumming at a tree that was not quite dead, and as he turned towards her, acknowledging that she had stirred, he removed his helmet and spread his tusks into a smile, ending the chittering sound.

He torqued his upper body towards her as she crawled over to him and rested one hand on his back, between his shoulders, feeling the cold hard metal plating that protected him as she brushed her hand under his thick, fleshy hair.

The Yautja did not sleep anywhere near as often as a human, but K'Shai was grateful that he remained with her keeping watch over her while she got some rest.

Without a word spoken, for Yautja also preferred less verbal communication in exchange for something more subtle and ethereal, R'chnt projected his thought process through a gentle caress of her cheek and the immediate accompaniment of a quiet purr.

K'Shai moaned quietly through lips pressed into a gentle smile and leaned into him, feeling the heat rising from his body along with the scent of his musk as both amplified in union with the sound he made. She slid her hands across his chest; she pressed her lips into his cheek.

She ran her tongue along his quills, eliciting a sharply aroused growl before one hand slid its way down his abdomen and between his legs.

R'chnt tingled and crested, feeling her touch and her rising scent mixing with his own, broadcasting what seemed like her almost constant state of readiness for mating.

He only idly wondered if this was a quality all _ooman_ females possessed, though he never noticed it before if they did, so he logically calculated that it was a reaction he spurred in her.

He allowed his purr to deepen and reverberate through his body, feeling the effects of it down to his toes and noting that this was part of his reaction she spurred in him. He unbuckled his chest armor and removed his gauntlets, then removed his lower leg bracers as K'Shai stripped herself free of her own layers before he stood.

She knelt on the edge of the bed as he stood beside it, pressing the palms of her hands onto his lower abdomen and rubbing them down over his hip bones as R'chnt growled with arousal and readiness and removed his belt.

His deep voice rumbled as she stroked him, feeling the throbbing erection in his hands growing quickly to full hardness. K'Shai stretched up her body as tall as she could make it, extended her arms, elbows straight, and laced her fingers around the back of his neck as she leaned into his body.

R'chnt stepped in closer to her as she teetered on her knees at the edge of the bed, hanging off of his neck with most of her balance before she pulled herself back and turned away from him.

On her knees, intended to crawl teasingly away from him to center herself on the bed, K'Shai dripped with tingling readiness and R'chnt's growl immediately amplified as he grabbed hold of her hips and stopped her motion.

K'Shai gasped and squealed, feeling R'chnt's full erection find its way to her wet opening and enter.

The sensation of pressure and massage as he worked his way, attentively and carefully, into her down to the base of his skin, made her body quiver, tense, flex, soften, and throb again and again in rhythm to the action of his hips pressing forward and sliding backwards as he glided through her, pressing his large self into her harder and harder each time, forcing her to expand to accommodate him.

R'chnt leaned over her body as he thrust himself into her, his eyes closing with pure satisfaction in response to the sensation of her tight, swelling tract dripping lubricating juices over his rod as she gasped and squealed, paralyzed in pleasure.

K'Shai could feel his tusks tickling the back of her neck, dragging softly along her shoulders, tracing the edge of her body as his hot breath huffed onto her skin in time with his pounding action. There was nothing she could, or wanted to, do other than remain on her knees before him, taking pleasure in his enjoyment of her, allowing every little sensation of the feel of him sliding in and out, the heat of his body, the sounds he made, the feel of his testicles slapping against her as he worked, to overwhelm her until she rolled her eyes into the back of her head as a surge of orgasm caused her to actively stifle a hoarse bellow.

Immediately, R'chnt joined her in harmony, making no attempts to stifle his own guttural bellow as his body built pressure in a few final thrusts and exploded with a sensation powerful enough to almost make him consider collapsing on top of her.

He shifted his balance and rounded his body over her, leaving himself deep inside her as they both gasped and panted, taking a few moments to catch their breath before he slowly withdrew himself free of her throbbing, hot, swollen tract as she raised her voice in a high pitched moan in response to the sensation.

K'Shai did exactly what he had wanted to as well, and dropped to the bed with a satisfied huff. She rolled onto her back and faced him, smiling as she shut her eyes and stretched her body, arcing from her toes to her hands, which she folded behind her head and shifted her elbows into the air as her back raised off the blankets.

R'chnt purred deeply, loudly, a thoroughly pleasured reverberation that soon lulled the both of them to sleep as the sun barely peeked over the distant horizon.

Not neglecting her body's needs, the daily ritual upon stirring for the day meant that K'Shai made her way out of the bed to the bathroom.

She tried, again, to silently slip away from her peacefully sleeping mate, and although she was sure she had not made a sound, she assumed he must have felt the shift of her weight, perhaps the loss of her body heat against his, because he was up instantaneously, on his feet, stiff, straight, and glancing around warily.

"I was trying not to wake you," she said with a soft giggle, her voice in a near whisper.

R'chnt clicked thoughtfully, said nothing, but followed along with her, his relaxation clearly reflected in the dangling unit between his legs, K'Shai noticed with a pleased smile.

She felt sore, stiff, no doubt perhaps a bit bruised in deep internal places that were not accustomed to such activities. She was still adjusting to him, and she certainly did not blame him for any discomfort she felt. The pleasure he elicited in her overrode the uncomfortable side effects anyway.

She watched him tend to his own needs after her, before she splashed some water on her face, giving herself a quick rinse with a gallon jug of boiled down rain water she kept on the bathroom sink, her shower in a bottle.

She patted her face dry with a clean towel and eyed R'chnt as he started to move past her, then stopped directly behind her and reached around her body, embracing her tightly with her back in his abdomen.

Once again she heard his purr build through his chest and rattle its way out of his body, like it seeped through his skin and into hers. It was a soothing sound, eliciting a sort of content peace and calm in the quiet morning air as R'chnt indicated his arousal to her by firming himself up into her back.

K'Shai moaned quietly through pressed lips and turned slowly around to face him, smiling up at him as she gazed to him and took in a long, deep breath and contemplated her next move. He was ready, she was sore.

He purred deeply, the pitch dropping into a sensation that could be felt more than a sound to be heard as his musk built in conjunction. She stroked his body, ran her hands over the powerful muscle mass that covered his ribs, and traced them down his comparatively slender hips and down his thighs.

"Come here," she said in a whisper and slid laterally to the toilet, popping the lid closed as she sat down upon it in a straddle. "Sometimes, humans have other ways of pleasing each other. Let me show you."

R'chnt followed her a half a step sideways and stood before her as she lowered herself in front him. He stiffened, bristling slightly with a hint of reservation, which clearly, he thought, K'Shai picked up on, since she assured him her intention was to please.

Her position allowed her to be at the perfect height for her needs. She was uncertain exactly of what the best process was for such an action she intended to perform, having absolutely no experience in such things.

R'chnt seemed to feed off her uncertainty and much to her surprise, he braced up, even withdrew slightly. She took a deep, long, slow breath and spoke again in a whisper.

"Put your hands on the wall."

He hesitated for a moment at her request, his uncertainty claiming charge of his actions. It was a response he was not accustomed to, and for whatever reason he could not quite understand, K'Shai seemed to elicit it in him frequently.

What pleasure she intended, he could not even begin to comprehend, but he had learned through months of ever-growing contact with her, that K'Shai would not intentionally harm him. He leaned forward, resting his palms on the wall behind her head as she had indicated.

She leaned into him, gently cupping her hands around his shaft as she opened her jaw. R'chnt's body thrilled and surged in reaction to the sensation of her fleshy, moist, and warm lips wrapping around the tip of shaft.

He immediately tensed, agitated but overwhelmed with feelings he could not quite place, having absolutely no base of reference for. She pressed her lips closed, moved her mouth back and forth along his shaft, and grappled the base of him with both hands as his claws tightened and dug into the weak wall supporting him, leaving marks.

R'chnt gasped a terse breath, held it, and suspended his rumbling growl as he held motionless, in shock and surprise. He locked his body rigid, and K'Shai huffed through her nostrils, her mouth currently occupied.

She paused delicately, wondering if what she was doing pleasured him at all, or if she was doing something incorrectly, then she suddenly felt her heart to begin to race as the realization that she was quite possibly frightening him dawned on her.

She was used to see him rigid, tense, alert, but he always had a way of sort of oozing into her company and relaxing. Now, he simply held utterly motionless, more tense than she had ever seen him, and so quiet it was almost alarming.

She thought of stopping. She was told by many friends throughout high school that the boys loved this sort of thing, but as the giant, deadly, fearsome warrior alien that loomed over her braced in almost fearful tension while he audibly dug holes into the wall with the bony claws that capped his fingers, she had the not-so-vague idea that perhaps this was definitely not a pleasuring experience for him.

She did suddenly think of how his reaction to the first time she put her hands on him caused a similar response; he withdrew as if unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the sensation. He did relax into the feelings of her hands on him rather quickly, but as the seconds ticked by now, she saw no sign of him giving him.

He felt rather like he was being held prisoner, wanting to pull away, but somehow forcing himself to stand his ground because he was trying to cater to her desires, while she worriedly presumed she was not meeting his.

Just as quickly as the notion to stop popped into her mind, during the fraction of a second that she nervously analyzed her own actions and his reactions and flickered through her recent experiences with him in her head, R'chnt growled deeply and his body lurched. He finally relaxed, exhaling almost a breath of relief.

Though his grip on the now damaged wall tightened up and she heard his claws crack more drywall, it did not feel to her like a nervous response. His body shuddered and all at once, he eased into a state of pleasured suppleness, his body arcing over K'Shai, repositioning slightly so she could achieve a better angle and his deep growl rumbled away with vigor.

Spurred on his sudden change of apparent interest, K'Shai moaned, and amplified her efforts, working her tongue and lips smoothly back and forth, applying and releasing pressure in waves as she did so, and moving his loose skin easily over the stiffened cartilage under it as she listened to R'chnt's heaving breaths above her.

Within moments, R'chnt shifted again and released one hand from the crumbling pale blue drywall. He pressed his hips forward, changing vocalizations from a deep rumbling growl, to a loud clicking back to a gurgling groan in between his own huffing breaths as he lowered one hand to her hair.

R'chnt's fingers eased up against her skull, forcing all of his aroused tension to be directed to his hand still on the bathroom wall, which crumbled a bit more under the pressure. With his hand on her head, he guided his fingers smoothly around, lightly gripping her long pony-tailed hair between his thumb and index fingers.

K'Shai could feel the nodules on his shaft begin to harden, she could feel that his tension had fully turned from apprehensiveness to completely aroused. While the parts her mouth and hands encompassed were stiff, the rest of R'chnt suddenly began to feel as though it was melting.

He swayed over her, crooning a rumble like nothing else she had ever heard him make. She was not in a position to notice that he had shut his eyes and bowed his head until it slung so low his tusks were dangling almost into her hair.

R'chnt's body throbbed and whirred in entirely new ways as he entered into an almost trance-like state. His mind had completely stopped functioning.

He stopped trying to figure out how K'Shai was able to perform such an action, or what possible reason there was for her species to even imagine doing something like that; it did not matter.

The pleasurable sensations she elicited by sucking on him and moving her tongue around him, stimulating his hardening skin, had succeeded in evacuating all possible upper brain functions out of his head. He succumbed to an instinctual need to build up, then release the wave of pressure in his rod.

He pumped his hips forward slowly, pushing himself a little further into her, judging the best he could just how much she could take and what her reaction might be. In response, K'Shai tightened her grip on the base of his shaft, her fingers tickling his large scrotum, which drove him into further pleasure and pushed him into the state of _za'nyuk-de._

K'Shai felt the transition in R'chnt. His slow and steady, almost exploratory thrusts as he swayed his hips suddenly turned dramatic and powerful. She felt the same thing from him when he reached a certain point during mating and as he pressed himself between her lips, the sensation almost overpowered her.

He began a frenzy of pumping into her, one hand carefully gripped around her head, holding her pony tail, applying pressure, but even though in one sense he had lost some control and composure, he still maintained enough self-awareness to know how much force he used on her. He torqued his fingers around her long black hair, pulling slightly, but causing no discomfort.

His growl rumbled loudly and he sped up his thrusts as though driven by pure instinctual urging to do so. Her nose filled with his scent and her ears with his deep vocalizations.

Her mouth quickly filled with warm juices that flowed powerfully forth from him like a volcano eruption, the taste a little bitter but also slightly sweet. She swallowed what she could, and what was too much overran her lips and dripped down her chin onto her abdomen.

R'chnt, bellowing a muffled howl somewhere between a roar and a purr, extracted himself slowly, spurting continued flow across her chest and onto her thighs before he did something that K'Shai was not only shocked by, but quite absolutely certain was not something he would ever have done in anyone else's company.

She almost could not believe what she witnessed, and if she did not know that it was from a completely overwhelmed sense of pleasure, she would have almost felt bad for him.

He withdrew and managed to slide one foot barely half a step backwards before she spotted his body trembling as he released his grip from both her hair and the wall. He was shaking, vocalizing a guttural sound between ragged breaths and then suddenly, her lower viewpoint allowing her to see it clearly, his knees buckled and he dropped to the ground in a simmering heap.

He leaned up against the opposite wall, shut his eyes, and his skin rippled as his trembling muscles underneath flexed and spasmed.

She pressed her lips together, swallowing again, watching him with barely contained amusement before she stood, cleaned herself up with her shower in a bottle and moved in against him on the floor.

R'chnt lurched towards her, lowering his head into a state of total submission, and pressed the bony ridges along the edge of his skull where his fleshy warm tresses grew from, into her chest. She wrapped her arms around him and listened to him breath, embracing him, shutting her eyes as she rested her chin against his head, ignoring being softly jabbed under her jaw by the spiny horns that protruded from his huge crested head.

They sat together for some time in silence, with only the conjoined sounds of their hearts and their shared body heat to soothe them as R'chnt quelled his breathing and fell quiet in her grasp.

When he finally moved, it seemed his strength had returned and K'Shai released him and they both stood and returned to their pile of clothing and armor still on the bedroom floor, R'chnt's hand gently clapped over her shoulder.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

He moved like pure, raw power. Every step he took, every action he performed, full of purpose and control and direction. K'Shai watched R'chnt as he led her through city streets, then through empty and long abandoned subdivisions, until they reached sprawling overgrown fields that led into woods.

He was acutely aware of everything around him, so much more than she could possibly perceive. Even without his helmet on, he was fully capable of using his highly developed senses of smell and hearing, along with visual capabilities that allowed him to see threats hidden behind solid objects and walls. His helmet and computerized technology only amplified what R'chnt was naturally capable of.

She stalked carefully behind him, listening attentively whenever he offered up a bit of direction or guidance, telling her anything from his awareness of his environment to how she should move and step and think when on a hunt.

She could not help but to feel like there was no "when" she was on a hunt, because the way he acted and moved and educated her, it seemed like he always was on the hunt, and thus, she was too. She could not imagine there was a difference in his mannerisms when he was on a hunt versus when he was not, except for the moments he allowed himself to relax when he was with her.

Right now, technically, he was not on a hunt yet he moved gracefully, gliding through the woods they had entered with stealth and certainty, constantly surveying their surroundings, his alertness and wariness never fading. She did her best to mimic him, to hold her breath and listen more closely whenever he stopped to evaluate a specific location, but she was quite certain it was simply not in her nature or capabilities to learn to maneuver and absorb her surroundings the way he did, although he did not stop instructing her on how.

Their round-a-bout path had taken them directly back to the very same river she had gotten her first spear fishing lesson in yesterday.

K'Shai had not even realized that he was taking her to the same spot until the river came into view. He navigated her around an entirely different route with more familiarity than she could have managed with active GPS in her hand.

She swallowed and sighed in reservation, realizing that he probably knew far more about her world than she did; knowing full well he had hunted on Earth many times.

He led her to the water and instructed her again, guiding her on the use of the spear over and over, for what seemed like hours to K'Shai. She was exasperated, frustrated, and yet he seemed perfectly content, patiently crouched, barely moving beside her.

She looked him over, one of the few times she stood taller than he, although even crouched next to her as he was, his head still reached above her elbows. She smiled softly as she surveyed him.

" _Hul'tin-de, K'Shai!"_ He reminded her. _Focus!_

"Sei-i, ki' _ha n'tu._ " She assured him she was.

R'chnt chortled under his biohelmet, " _'en l-teel."_

K'Shai pressed her lips together and tried to stifle a giggle at his reminder that her focus was to be placed on the fish.

It was the same river, the same rock plateau, and only slightly different carp than the ones she successfully speared yesterday. R'chnt had edged himself so tightly close to her, crouched next to her that his shoulder was brushing against her backside in a distracting manner.

She was sure he was doing quite on purpose. He was all business when it came to his lessons, though even despite his helmet on, she thought he was just bored enough to cause a little mischief.

When she raised the spear and began the downward lob the way he had shown her, his hand came completely up against her back, brushing between her butt cheeks before landing lightly on the small of her back. She dropped the spear in the water and sighed an amused bark.

"What was that for!?"

" _eilk-Yautjan_ ," R'chnt corrected her smoothly, reminding her to use the new language she was also learning.

" _Th'lu-hul'tin-de,"_ he grunted. _I told you to concentrate._

She jumped off the rock yet again and retrieved the spear. The water, in the early November air, was frigid, and her shoes and socks were soaked.

She returned to the rock brushing off a flush of déjà vu from yesterday's spear-fishing calamity that had sent her into the water so many times she had the mind to just _catch_ the carp or shoot them with her rifle.

By the end of her first adventure, she felt like she was getting a feel for the alien weapon, the technique he showed her, and the force needed to pierce the meaty fish, and she had already spent enough time today struggling to make a kill that she realized she somehow had apparently forgotten everything she learned the day before.

R'chnt stood and moved in tightly behind her, resting one hand on her hip, and guiding her other hand on the proper way to hold the spear once again.

His naturally heated body, which operated at a much higher temperature than hers, immediately soothed her prickled skin and she leaned backwards into him, accepting his warmth as well as his guidance, spurring him to issue a correction again.

" _Hul'tin-de, K'Shai."_

His voice echoed with patient annoyance, a playful tone knowing full well what he was accomplishing with the close contact yet still striving to make for an educational session.

He directed her again, chortling a bit in amusement as she lobbed the spear again and it thudded uselessly to the rocky riverbed.

She retrieved _yet again_ , and returned to the rock, spying another fish in passing and tried again. Again she retrieved the spear and tried again and yet again introduced water into her shoes for no reason.

 _"_ Ok! What…" she started and R'chnt cut her off.

" _K'Shai, eilk-Yautjan_."

R'chnt spoke English well enough to have a capable conversation with her. She had been amazed to discover that he also spoke some significant amounts of French, Spanish, and words of three other languages she did not recognize, although he assured her they were spoken languages of his world.

She had no reason to question that, but yet could not help wonder exactly what region the languages were from, or in fact, _what era,_ given that he was well over four-hundred years old by the Earth calendar.

Despite his extensive abilities to speak foreign languages, there was only one language he preferred to speak and he reminded her again to pay attention to her lessons and speak as he taught her.

Whenever she got hung up on a word, she would speak her mind in English and he would, if he was able, translate the correct Yautjan word to match her intention.

The Yautjan language was fairly simple as far as actual vocabulary, but the pronunciations and remembering word order and differences in tone and infliction or varying pronunciations depending on if she was speaking to, or about, a male or female was difficult.

Certain sounds were made on exhalation, and others were made on inspiration, and the difference mattered, which was a concept that K'Shai had a hard time with. Likewise, many sounds included ticking, gurgling, and trilling of the Yautja vocal cords, simply were not possible for K'Shai to make.

The language did not have a lot of redundancy. There were no multiple different words that all meant the same thing. There was no real slang that she knew of, only a few phrases that could be deemed slang.

The Yautjan language was universal, too. He informed her of the confusing nature of the human race, to speak so many different languages, and that was when he thought there were only a handful.

When she had told him there were dozens of different languages spoken on Earth, even hundreds, she was not even sure, R'chnt stared at her in amazement, questioning how any human could possibly communicate with another given the complexity and diversity of the languages.

The Yautja language was full of simple and concise vocabulary that the entire species shared. It was sprawling and cryptic in the written form, and frustrating to pronounce, but yet still it its own way, it was simplistic.

Much of Yautjan communication relied on body language and scent, which R'chnt said was less confusing and never lied.

R'chnt was a keen and capable student when he got English lessons from her, hearing a word once, maybe twice, and not only committing it to memory immediately, but also able to pronounce it correctly.

Like K'Shai who struggled to make certain sounds in his language, he lacked the humans' ability to emphasize inflictions and syllables in order to make subtle differences in pronunciation, but he learned at a nearly photographic-memory pace.

When he was teaching her, he insisted she work her way through his language, however slowly or badly pronounced that she must.

He remained patient with her, never letting his temper to flare or cancel lesson plans because he wasn't getting anywhere. He simply held quiet and still, displaying his awesome ability to turn into a statue and wait for her to work things out on her own or ask for help.

" _Su'thin ki'nyh-ko,"_ she questioned again, unable to make the proper inflictions in the Yautja tongue to indicate a question, but R'chnt understood all the same.

 _What am I doing wrong?_

He clicked his mandibles together for a moment, making a dull drilling sound before he responded.

" _Th-kha'te."_ He said simply.

She sighed deeply and steadied herself. He was right. She was rushing.

She lost her focus because of his proximity to her. He was toying with her senses quite purposefully, exactly to distract her, and she had completely lost the ability to retain what she had learned the day before.

She felt embarrassed and could not help but to think how the mighty towering hunter hovering behind her must have thought her such a fool, struggling with something as ridiculous to him as spear fishing, when she had seen him spear and kill a _kainde amedha_ queen by clinging to her back and puncturing the base of her skull.

She returned her focus on the fish and the task at hand, and forced his utterly pleasing musky scent out of her mind. She quelled the stimulated arousal in her body and channeled her focus back to the tip of her spear.

She raised it again and took careful study of the fish slowly easing by, just under the rippling surface as the afternoon sun glimmered across it in shimmery bursts.

She listened to the water whisking by the rocky plateau, she felt it brush past her soaking wet shoes as it ran over the surface where she stood. She listened to the cool autumn breeze blow the orange leaves off the nearby trees while a few birds chirped happily oblivious to the destruction of the world around them.

She felt her skin prickle into goose bumps in protest to the soaking cold. She felt her own heart beating and in the still moment, she was sure she could hear R'chnt's hearts beating smoothly and powerfully in his own chest a few inches behind her head. She lobbed the spear again as he had shown and it sailed smoothly down into a fish.

Brimming, she turned to him and he simply nodded his sleekly helmeted head, crouched back down and waited for her retrieve her kill and do it again.

" _Gkei'moun_ ," he said finally after the lesson ended with eight fish on the short spear.

K'Shai beamed proudly at R'chnt as they waded through the water and returned to the shoreline to head back to camp as the afternoon cleared into evening and the winds carried in imminent rain.

" _Gkei'moun,_ " K'Shai agreed. _Simple._

He extended his clawed hands towards her once at the shoreline and traced his large fingertips along her fine chin, tickling her neck with his talons as he stroked her delicately and moved against her, pressing his body so closely into hers. He forced her to the ground just by making a massive, nearly four hundred pound blockade.

He sank down low, crouching over her, an aroused growl emanating from under his helmet and through a flutter of panting breaths and heated touches as she removed her garments. He positioned K'Shai on her knees before him, hands on her hips as he kneeled behind her, solid erection dripping.

He pushed himself into her wet and ready opening, grunting and groaning in pure enjoyment of the sensations he experienced with her.

He was thrilled by her acceptance of his penetrations, and even more so overwhelmed by the pleasure she elicited willingly and readily in him and received from him.

As he inserted himself and withdrew again and again in and out of her, he allowed the feelings to rush through him until they erupted back out of him and into her to their harmonized breathing and moaning.

K'Shai was so very different than the creature he had once mistaken her for, and as he redressed and stood and watched her prepare to move back to the camp herself, he could not help but feel a flush of guilt once again over his arrogant judgment of her.

If she only knew, he would imagine she would consider him quite the fool. He was humbly grateful to the gods for giving him the wisdom to put his arrogance aside.

After returning to camp and providing her fish kills to the group once again, disregarding their shocked looks, K'Shai returned to R'chnt's side for the night.

She was silently grateful he was taking the time to spend a few days in her company. The others in his group all seemed grateful too; both to him for allowing them some much needed rest and to her for keeping him occupied enough to allow them a few extra days' rest.

The smell of their combined pheromones left no questions to any Yautja that he was mating with her. Although while K'Shai was not aware of it, they were rather shocked by the quantity of musk that implied they were mating multiple times.

R'chnt received a few tenderly handled inquiries from W'rsa and G'toun-de, who knew him best and longest, and were at least somewhat comfortable enough in asking with much risk of inciting R'chnt.

He raised his mandibles in amused smiles as they processed the hard to understand concept that K'Shai was most definitely as actively ready and willing to mate as she smelled. He was equally ready at all times, and the others, he knew, were more than just a little jealous, but they hid it well out of respect. Still, he knew not all would.

After a short visit with his group, K'Shai and R'chnt retreated to her private chambers, where she ate some jerky and when she was full and rested enough, he growled his intentions to her and soon laid her on her back, spread leg before him, once, then once more a few hours later, and again before the sun came up the following morning.

She met him with equal vigor each time, showing no signs of disinterest or inability to mate, or loss of desire to please him.

She put her hands, lips, and tongue on all parts of his body and he purred and chuffed and growled in delight as he filled her with his juices over and over while she squealed, moaned, and pleasured him to his very bones.

She rolled over from next to him and sat on the edge of the bed in the morning light and stretched in a long arc of her back as she laced her fingers together and reached for the ceiling.

R'chnt watched her bones glide smoothly under her skin and his eyes followed the curve of her back down to her butt. Her scent was a mixture of multiple satisfied rounds and his own musk and he spread his upper mandibles into a thin smile, pleased by the signal her body would emit.

He briefly thought to last night's quick conversation with the others about K'Shai's very different physiological abilities and desires.

She was willing to bring pleasure and be pleasured as equal to him, and she seemed equally as proud to wear his scent as he was to lay it on her. It was an unfamiliar thing to him, and he very much found adjusting to the scent of her constantly ready state difficult.

Again he reminded himself of something he seemed to keep forgetting; that she was not Yautja. Female Yautja would cycle into a breeding season annually. It was a time when any available male gathered and displayed their interests, fought for the rights to breed, and if they were lucky, succeed.

R'chnt was a proud sire of hundreds of offspring, some of whom he had heard over the centuries had done his bloodlines proud, becoming capable hunters, leaders themselves.

He had survived challenge after challenge from males vying for the same females, to the point where males saw him coming and suddenly decided on a new female to pursue instead. More so, he had successfully survived the challenges his selected females presented to him.

It was expected that any male daring, or foolish, enough to display solid interest in the best of the females would be expected to prove his mettle against her to her satisfaction. The risk of dismemberment, broken bones, and death, was usually enough incentive to keep lesser males out of the breeding pool, but R'chnt had proven himself over and over.

He thoroughly enjoyed any chance to mate that he earned, but as he thought about K'Shai having pleased him in a matter of days more times than he had the opportunity for in the last decade, and without a fight, only wanting to elicit pleasure, he felt himself flare with a protectiveness that he never imagined himself capable or caring enough to display.

He reached for her and moved across the bed to sit next to her, gently placing his hand on the small of her back and she immediately and happily leaned into him, drawing out a purr from his chest as if she could produce it at will.

He did feel content with her and it was obvious to him she found the sound soothing. She tucked her head under his chin and sat quietly in his embrace for a moment, feeling his tusks tickle through her hair, the puffs of his quiet breaths shifting her hair a bit as she shut her eyes and enjoyed the peace of the moment to the sound of his purr.

She started kissing him, touching him in her gentle way, caressing her hands across his chest, down his abdomen, over his thighs, across his groin. He moaned and heaved at the sensation of her fingers stroking his shaft, turning it from flaccid to functioning in seconds. R'chnt growled an enticing welcome and crawled atop her as she leaned back into the middle of the bed.

"What is it?" K'Shai asked him, forming the words in his language more easily.

There was a certain look in his eye, a tone in deep vocalizations, yet again hitting into moods and sounds she had not experienced from him. He purred and chuckled softly, almost reluctant to tell her his thoughts, but the words slipped out as his brain functions dropped to a lower level.

"I was just wondering how long your breeding season lasts."

K'Shai laughed gleefully and wrapped her arms tightly around him, thoroughly amused.

"Humans don't have breeding seasons. I just want to bring you pleasure." She said with a gracious smile.

R'chnt purred deeply, caressing her, his voice quieting as he confirmed beyond a doubt that he treasured her company and would not do anything to harm her. She cooed softly to him and felt him slip himself into her as she inhaled deeply and rolled her eyes closed, tipping her chin towards his cheek and nudging into him while she gently played with his long hair as he pumped steadily and slowly.

She wrapped her hands around his shoulders, caressing him; her body relaxed as he eased himself smoothly back and forth, never increasing his pace. Rather, he was taking careful feel of every inch of her as he worked himself deeply forward then nearly completely out.

His skin soon heated up so much that sweat began to bead. Her fingers slid easily along his back as far as she could reach across his shoulders as she continued to lightly glide them over him.

The pressure built and K'Shai soon became aware of the nodules along his shaft hardening; a process she had quickly come to learn meant not only that he was getting near his peak arousal, but that he would be triggered into a sort of frenzy as he pleasured himself, which to her, seemed rather like the urge was beyond his control, drawing on pure instinctual drive.

It was just then that R'chnt paused in his thrusting. She held still and listened to him exhale a long, slow, deep breath, channeling his inner control as he tucked his body tighter against hers. She tenderly wrapped her arms tighter around him and waited, before he began again, slowly withdrawing himself and smoothly easing back in, overriding the natural urge to mate in a fury as if she might fight him away in the final moments.

K'Shai moaned loudly at the sensation tickling her tract from end to end, the rigid skin along R'chnt's shaft gliding over every detail of her body, eliciting a shock that made her tense her legs and squeeze him tightly while she howled and he joined her in bellowed moan.

"Alright, K'Shai?" He asked is well articulated English, though the lack of inflictions in his voice made the words sound more like a statement than a question.

Unable to even produce a sound, K'Shai nodded vigorously and simply tightened her grip around his shoulders again, gaping her mouth open, trying to catch a breath, only able to moan in his ear as he continued on sliding smoothly back and forth, the hurry and guttural growling gone, replaced by a pleasured and relaxed place, deep purr, and overwhelming sensations.

He withdrew and thrusted in a smooth, easy pace, never rushing. His body glistened with sweat as he worked to forcibly shove away his natural aggressive urges and maintain a consistent, steady pace, letting both their bodies throb in overwhelmed sensation.

K'Shai panted and groaned in wild delight as she felt her body fill with his load while he cooed and huffed, jaws pressed against her temple before they both finally relaxed. Her body was still shaking and trembling as he withdrew after a short rest.

R'chnt had gone almost placid and carefully laid over her, keeping himself in close contact with her, sharing his body heat, but staying elevated enough that he did not crush her.

Once they were able to find enough rigidity in their muscles to stand up, R'chnt guided K'Shai once again through the city, past the industrial park at the outer edge, and into the woods. This time, he tracked along the river, instead of taking her to it for more fishing.

He moved cautiously and slowly, crouching lower and lower as he went and indicated for K'Shai to follow exactly before he slipped into silence. They approached a small clearing in the woods and looking ahead, K'Shai spotted a deer tenderly stepping towards the water for a drink.

Her heart fluttered as R'chnt showed her how to stalk the animal, setting her in a position in front of him, silently guiding her exactly how to raise the spear. She was silently sure he was sure she would miss, but he guided her all the same. He paused and she held still.

The young buck, so close to them that K'Shai could see his tiny button emergence of antlers atop his head, was amazingly oblivious to their approach. R'chnt motioned and instantly, K'Shai drew back.

The deer noticed her movement and raised his head in alarm, turning its large brown eyes towards her. It froze as K'Shai pressed the weapon forward, sending it flying.

The spear was light, well suited to her size and easy for her to carry. Like an oversized dart with a lethal tip, it was clearly a weapon made for hunting, more than sparring. It was so slender that it barely seemed suitable for the large hands of a Yautja.

It was sharp, though, made of lightweight metal that K'Shai was certain could probably slice through steel with ease. Its deadliness was of no question, like the Yautja.

K'Shai watched the spear fly silently in the direction she launched it, with as much ease as a paper airplane, halfway making her wonder if the thing had hidden thrusters somewhere on it. She was getting better at impaling fish from several feet away, but the young buck was well over twenty meters away.

The spear, though, did not seem to care about the distance. It performed its job as well as its user could direct it.

The deer shifted sideways and prepared to bound away in the same instant that the spear slid cleanly into its side. It was not a killing blow, but K'Shai felt a momentary thrill that she had even hit the animal, knowing suddenly that her group was most certainly going to eat well that night.

The buck bolted away, leaping clumsily into the river, thrown off by the impact, then its nimble legs pushed the animal away from the water and up the embankment into the woods, spear sticking out of its abdomen at an angle.

Immediately R'chnt was up and after it and K'Shai remained hot on his heels. The deer, full of shock, fear, and adrenaline combined with grace and agility that a human could never possess, was too quick for her to keep up with, but R'chnt caught up to the animal with unwavering focus.

K'Shai bolted to the spot and found the animal down, R'chnt crouched over it. He had not killed it, he had _tackled_ it down. The spear was still sticking out of the creature, and K'Shai suddenly felt a horrific wave of guilt knowing what the poor thing's last moments of life were like, simultaneously wondering how many deer there even were left on the planet, and feeling doubly guilty for killing this one.

R'chnt moved quickly, grabbing a knife from his waist and calling to her sharply to take it. He directed her with a stabbing motion exactly where to insert the blade and K'Shai heard the bones of its skull crunch as the sharp weapon pierced it.

The deer stopped moving instantly. K'Shai could feel her hands trembling. She suddenly felt flush and weak and dropped to her knees next to R'chnt.

She had certainly killed her share of animals before, but that had always been with a rifle, from a distance. There was no way she would have ever even managed to approach a deer so closely without R'chnt's guidance and direction, and there was something about killing it with hand weapons that made the kill so _personal_ it was unnerving.

This was very different than spearing a fish.

K'Shai remained morbidly silent as R'chnt lifted the carcass and carried the kill for her, directing her out of the woods.

He filled the silence of the late afternoon air with a story about a kill of his own that had been injured but managed to evade him for more than a day before he caught up with it, though he did pridefully admit that it was when he quite young, as if to imply that such things would never happen anymore.

"We honor our prey, K'Shai, with quick kills. Creatures for food must not suffer. Stalk quietly, select your target, kill quickly."

K'Shai mulled the words over then blurted out the question before she could stop herself, instantly regretting it.

"Is that how you hunt humans?"

R'chnt stopped and fell alarmingly still and silent for a moment. He lowered the carcass to the ground and turned to face K'Shai, the black depthless eyes of his biohelmet locking in on her. She braced her back straight and took in a deep, slow breath.

" _M'di,_ " he said simply.

He had no doubt that at some point such a conversation would come up and he had already pondered how he was going to handle it when it did.

She had already seen, touched, and recognized adornments on his neck sashes and on his belt that were trophies of hunts on her world; the pendants around his neck that she had once called _dog tags_ ; the human half skull that adorned the sheath to his sword, the shredded flag he retrieved from one battle, and the bones of a finger that had pulled the trigger on a weapon that damaged him once.

He was proud of his kills, proud of his trials and hunts on her world, the injuries they left and the skulls and weapons he collected, which someday, he hoped, she would see upon the walls of his ship and home, though she may never feel the same sense of pride in them, he recognized.

The question sent a ripple through him that brought him to a halt, and suddenly, all the forethought he put into a proper response to this subject seemed completely insufficient.

It was far easier for him to envision how he would puff up his chest, swell his pride, and regale her with tales of the human prey he stalked and killed when he had not grown to know her as he did. It was easier for him to think up dismissive half-answers and vague generalizations when she was not staring directly at him with a wary gaze welling up in her, after he had come to know, to _want_ , to enjoy her company and her body.

He sighed and unclicked his helmet from the computer system and atmospheric controls, removing it from his head. He tucked it under his arm and crouched to the ground, balancing solidly on his large, flat feet.

He did not break his gaze back at her, and she eyed him patiently, apprehensively, waiting for further information.

"To hunt a creature that hunts you back, you already know," he said factually, keeping his words slow so she could understand them, and watching his tone carefully, "is a very different kind of thing."

She said nothing and for a moment, he wondered if she had understood his words or perhaps he needed to explain in her own language, which would have been difficult.

"K'Shai, _kei'thin-de?_ " He questioned after a moment of silence.

She swallowed and nodded that she understood, still motionless, a dozen or so feet away from him, her eyes sinking down to the carcass of the deer he helped her hunt, kill, just so she could gain experience and feed her friends.

She had not meant to interrogate him on the subject of killing humans. She did not mean for the words to spew from her as they did, and she realized after the fact that they even had an uncontrolled bit of sarcasm and bitterness, which clearly he picked up on. He crouched before her trying to reduce his size as he figured out a way to respond, making her feel even more guilty.

She knew exactly what the Yautja were. What R'chnt was. She had not intended to imply accusation or blame or even the slightest hint of hate. Her heart shuddered at the thought and she was sure her hands were shaking.

She knew he had learned valuable lessons that he probably never imagined he even needed, or wanted, to learn during this _hunt_. She knew his age. For four hundred and thirty years he had been born, raised, walked, talked, and hunted Yautja.

He was a killer, a hunter, a warrior, a wise leader and teacher of hunters and warriors and killers. Fair game was fair game and for a Yautja, no species was off the menu or trophy wall, if they were hunted appropriate to the beliefs of the culture that they adhered so strictly to.

And yet, here was R'chnt, crouched before her in a clearly submissive gesture, trying his best to work his way around a conversation that was uncomfortable for both of them, because he had come to value her, equally as much as she did him.

She simply wished she could go back two minutes and stop herself from blurting out the words.

"What's it like?" She spoke in a shaky whisper, trying to fill the uncomfortable silence with the only thing currently on her mind.

R'chnt tipped his head, carefully watching her. He glanced to the deer and then back to her.

"It is challenging. You stalk. You watch. You choose the prey that will offer the best fight."

He spoke clearly, slowly, keeping his voice in a careful monotone. He tried to remain as diplomatic as possible, sticking to facts, but he would not lie to K'Shai; it was not part of his nature.

He was proud to have hunted the human prey he had, and there had been a part of him that was disappointed that the world would be closed for further hunting in light of what had happened to it.

"How do you know? How can you tell?" She asked, more comfortable now with the flow of the discussion.

"K'Shai, we hunt those that already display a will to defend themselves. Prey that wield weapons, lay traps, try to evade or stand directly to us." He informed her. "We know by watching. A good hunter watches. Studies the prey, learns about what he is hunting."

She licked her lips and nodded, silently acknowledging she understood his words, although she was still trying to absorb them.

She had done things in the last year she would never have done if she had gone to fashion school. She had killed people, but she justified it as actions of self-defense or humane necessity.

Doing so had made her sick to her stomach for days, unwilling to eat, and uninterested in even leaving the safety of her group. Somewhere along the way, she was not sure when, she had put aside the gut-wrenching feelings of those memories, but suddenly they all welled up again.

She could not imagine hunting down and killing a person for pleasure and enjoyment. The very same actions that made one species criminal, glorified the other.

The Yautja had very different views that she was only beginning to understand when it came to culture, spirituality, honor, and morality. Her eyes scanned over R'chnt's body, across the trophy adornments from Earth that he wore, which reflected his age and history, then settled on the deer carcass as she tried to figure out why she felt the way she did for killing it.

R'chnt waited for a moment to see if she had anything to add, and then continued on.

"When intelligent prey offers a challenge, it is an experience like no other." He paused, trying to keep the tone of his voice in check. "Your species, when forced to use wits instead of fleeing as instinct drives, are difficult to kill."

He added in quickly, trying to cover up what could have easily sounded like an insult, which was not his intention, "cunning and ferocious; incredibly challenging."

K'Shai did not move or respond. He ticked his mandibles together in consideration for a moment and then arced his body slightly to reveal an old scar on his left flank.

"They leave their own scars, and they have killed our kind before." He said.

Her eyes dropped to the scar. It was round, puckered in; the faded white lines of the scar tissue crawled away from the center like spiderwebs, barely noticeable against the mottled pale hues of his hide.

She had run her fingers across that scar many times without consideration of how he had acquired it. Suddenly, her posture relaxed and she approached him, lightly running her fingers across the scar.

"A human did this to you?" She asked in a whisper, eyes still locked on her fingertips over the wound.

"Yes." He said simply.

"Did you kill him?" She asked.

R'chnt stifled an amused grin. 

"I would not be here otherwise."

She pressed her lips together and nodded softly, then lifted her eyes to his.

"Did you enjoy it?"

R'chnt paused, thinking quickly to the finger bone he wore off his neck; the finger that had pulled the trigger on the weapon that caused the scar. His mind flickered quickly to the skull on display in his ship; a proud kill.

"Yes." He said simply.

He reached for her face, touching it delicately with his massive, clawed hand and K'Shai shut her eyes and tipped her cheek readily into her palm. He leaned in towards her, softly caressing her, feeling her delicate skin under his calloused fingertips as he traced her tiny chin, stroked her lips and slid his palm securely under chin.

"I would never hurt you, K'Shai." He said simply.

She reached for his face, running her fingers along his jaw, and stroking the quills that grew near his temple as she leaned into him and whispered.

"I know."

She breathed heavily, relaxing for the first time throughout the moment and kissed him slowly, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as far as they could reach over the frame of his protective armor and shoulder cannon, which currently slung low, pointing down.

R'chnt inhaled her scent and found himself instantly aroused, clicking invitingly before he shook his head, trying to focus his mind.

"I will teach you. For as long as the gods allow our Paths to be one. I will teach you to hunt, to fight. When you are ready, you may find yourself hunting intelligent prey."

"Oh," K'Shai exclaimed dismissively. "I could never hunt a human."

"There are other intelligent creatures in the universe than just humans and Yautja." He said with a chuckle; a sort of _you didn't think we were the only ones, did you_ type of tone.

He stood, extended his hand to hers as he did, to direct her to her feet before he stepped away, silently wondering what power it was that she held over him to distract him so fully with her scent and touch.

"Oh, wait." She said in a delicate whisper. "Come over here."

She reached for him and pulled a tiny insect off his shoulder, crimping it between her thumb and forefinger.

"Tick." She said. "Nasty little buggers. Carry diseases. They bite you and you can get very sick."

"A Yautja would not get sick." He said proudly, elevating his chin slightly.

She looked at him in surprise. "You've never been sick? Gotten some kind of virus from an alien bug bite or something?"

He clapped his solid palm against his chest, drawing a dull thumping sound. "Yautja strong. Healthy. Meaningless bug."

She smiled, shaking her head slowly side to side as she stepped on.

"Well, that's lucky. We have to get inoculations just to go to a new country." She muttered.

He did not understand her quickly spoken alien words, but she explained further during the walk back.

They returned to the camp and pulled to a halt some distance away from the human group, but not out of sight. R'chnt ignored the quickly growing crowd of alien spectators that had noticed them approach and began to shuffle out of the building to watch them or eye the food they brought with them.

He noticed K'Shai's two companions daring to come the closest, but paid them no mind as he showed her with slow maneuvers, how to tie, secure, and suspend the carcass.

She watched as R'chnt dropped the deer to the ground, withdrew some deceivingly narrow tether from a small reel hidden on his belt and strung the deer up for her from a street lamp.

The tether, made from braided metal strands of the very same metal that the Yautja's _awu'asa_ hunting armor was made from, could not be cut by anything other than Yautja weapons so far as she knew. It was nearly as thin as fishing line, yet it could suspend hundreds of pounds of weight without fail.

R'chnt lowered the animal down so she could reach it from the very end of the strung up hind legs to the tip of its nose, almost on the ground.

He withdrew a long blade from its holster on his belt and growled slightly, making a show of it for the onlooking humans. K'Shai glanced towards Lewis and Carlos who halted their approach and watched warily.

She offered a thin smile towards them and then paid careful attention to R'chnt's instruction. He handed her the blade and directed her in gutting, bleeding out, skinning, and carving the deer for cooking.

With the thrill and subsequent shaky feelings of the hunt behind her, carving the animal up came easily. She had done it before, many times, just not the way he was showing her. The blade slid smoothly under the hide and she cut it away as he directed, ensuring that she learned how to do it without damaging the pelt.

He instructed her that Yautja utilized every bit of their kills; even the bones, and had managed to make a not-so-vague series of comments about the human propensity to waste everything they got their hands on. She had a hard time disagreeing with him on that point, and many others that he made.

Eventually, K'Shai and R'chnt made their way from the human group to the Yautja group then to the quiet of the bedroom in the early hours of the morning as rain moved in.

R'chnt still could not quite comprehend K'Shai's displeasure with the weather, but he followed her into the bedroom all the same, relaxing enough to strip down immediately upon entering her living chambers and quickly spurring her to do the same.

He had gotten used to sleeping in his _awu'asa_ as a matter of necessity when on hunts, but humans, he noticed, seemed to _always_ sleep in garments. It was just one of the many strange mannerisms he doubted he would ever understand.

She crooned her readiness at his stimulation, her scent filled his nasal passages, and he allowed himself to slip into the distracted state of mind she seemed to naturally create with her scent as he penetrated her. R'chnt growled with pleasure as he pumped her, rocking his hips slowly and easily, smoothly gliding himself into and out of her until he boiled into full arousal.

K'Shai was his mate; she was not going to fight him away or harm him in the process of taking her and she was not going to stop providing him the pleasure of her company.

She had explained to him that humans mated for life. She had made a silent commitment to him with her body. It was overwhelming news that he struggled to try to understand her explanation of, for it was so vastly different than the Yautja way.

It had only spurred him to make the same commitment to her, though she did not ask for it return. He had protected her before, and would continue to do so in the future in any way he could. She pleasured him and he returned her pleasure while providing her with training and safety.

Despite the glaring differences in the beliefs and cultures of both species, R'chnt somehow knew that it was a silent expectation she had of him, to provide for her if he could, in return for her tender touch.

As he released himself into her and she stroked her fingers delicately along his body, he realized that her touch had become a craving, a _need_ , unlike any he had ever had before.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

" _Hul'tah,_ K'Shai. _Tau'epta."_

K'Shai grimaced and huffed softly. _Watch, then do_.

Again and again he said, keeping his temper quite in check, which apparently the others in the group noticed, too, because she overheard their comments amongst themselves; something to the effect of not treating her like a Yautja, although she did not quite understand their point.

She was sure if she had heard them, he most certainly did too, but he carried on with his lesson, which had usurped the last several hours of the morning, ignoring them.

She woke up as dawn barely managed to peek between the rain clouds only to find him stark naked having a quiet conversation with W'rsa in the other room.

K'Shai tip toed down the hallway, dragging the bed sheet wrapped around her, drawing both their attention.

W'rsa, though he was on the other side of the small kitchenliving room, stepped back, edging himself as close to the fire escape window as possible, either in the hopes of blending in with the paint or making a hasty retreat, she was not sure, but he seemed visibly uncomfortable with his proximity to her, and she doubted it had anything to do with her loosely hidden nudity.

W'rsa was the only one in R'chnt's hunting pack that stood anywhere near as tall and muscular as he. Though R'chnt was still taller and larger, W'rsa stood about four inches shorter, and only barely noticeably less muscular, if at all.

R'chnt towered a foot or more over the others in his group, and was so tall himself, his head barely cleared the seven and half foot ceilings in the apartment. W'rsa was younger than R'chnt, but a well-aged and experienced warrior himself, older than the other hunters, save for R'chnt of course.

In fact, K'Shai had learned that at three hundred twenty years of age, W'rsa was on the tail end of Yautja "middle age", old enough to be in his prime, not quite old enough to start to turn gray with age himself.

He had immense respect for R'chnt and had been his student as an unblooded youngster, and had never left his side in all the time since. He was receiving daily, personal training from R'chnt, filling the unique and much coveted position of learning to become a leader himself from one of the best Leaders alive.

The best that K'Shai could understand it as it was explained to her by R'chnt and W'rsa, he was like an apprentice, bound to take R'chnt's place as Leader when such a time came.

W'rsa was not of R'chnt's bloodline. She was surprised to learn that it was very rare for any male to ever train, or really even associate with, his own offspring. She did not fully understand how it could be that the male and female genders lived separate lives, but R'chnt had explained that males sired offspring, females raised them and by the time an offspring was ready to begin its own training for the first hunt, it could be possible that his sire would have been killed on a hunt of his own.

K'Shai had wanted to learn more about the Yautja way, but it sounded so foreign she wanted to let it absorb in small pieces at a time.

W'rsa bowed immediately and backed away partially out of respect of R'chnt, partially out of respect for K'Shai, partially to convey he intended no challenge, and partially to separate himself further from her appealing scent.

K'Shai was quickly catching on to the changing scents of the Yautja _h'dui'se,_ their musk, and it finally dawned on her that the Yautja were reacting to scents from her that she wasn't even aware she was emitting, yet it was certainly eliciting a response in them.

It had been so long since she had a real shower anyway, that she had sort of gone nose-numb to her own scent as it was. The thought that maybe that was why R'chnt was so interested in staying outside in the rain horrified her for a fleeting moment as she wondered exactly how sensitive Yautjan nasal systems were.

She knew that they had slits inside their upper gums that drew in scents into their sinuses, and she had come to understand that they could also, like a snake, taste scent in the air. The Yautja tongue, a forked appendage that was hidden in the back of the throat, could extend into their mouth and past their inner teeth, and was able to pick up scents K'Shai's dull senses would never detect.

The first time K'Shai slipped her tongue into R'chnt's mouth to meet his had caught him quite off guard. As far as unfamiliar sensations went, she had pressed him into discovering them all, and while he had clearly enjoyed his first experience with her lips around his erection, there were other sensations he simply was not keen on. She assumed perhaps it was because of how sensitive their tongues were.

Watching the way W'rsa backed away from her, putting more distance between himself and R'chnt, K'Shai couldn't help but to think it was a reaction to her scent more than the sight of her, as it had also become evident that Yautja lacked any level of modesty at all.

He reacted so quickly and automatically it was instinctual and so sharp it made her stop in her tracks. The Yautja were massive, fearsome, heavily armored, completely deadly, and here was one of the proudest examples of that ferocity that she had come to know, backing away in alarm from a sheet-draped naked nineteen year old human girl.

R'chnt had turned to acknowledge K'Shai's approach, sensing the _dia-shui_ that W'rsa had picked up on; a specific type of scent that was saturated in sexual pheromones. It was one thing to be aware of them on him, but another thing entirely to taste them oozing from the female that entered the room.

W'rsa, appropriately indicating he did not intend a confrontation, backed away and clicked in nervous submission. R'chnt drew his tusks apart warily, but strode over to his mate, easing the tension that was making W'rsa stand as rigid as a metal rod.

"K'Shai," he said to her. "We shall train."

The sky had opened up on them all morning and she was cold. It was windy and they were fifty feet in the air on the roof top.

She had come to learn that the Yautja preferred high ground, had no fear of heights whatsoever, were able to climb any surface they could sink their talons on their hands and feet into, and also savored heat, thriving in high temperatures as their almost reptilian-esque skin would suggest, but apparently that did not mean they could not tolerate cold, wet, damp.

She was shivering as she lined herself up again to perform the same series of movements that R'chnt patiently showed her while the others in his group sparred, their spears and bladed staffs they called _ki'cti-pa_ and _dha'kte_ wrist blades clanging together over the sound of their rumbled conversations amongst themselves.

K'Shai tried hard to put as much focus and energy into her lesson as they were into their training, but as the wind rippled her wet clothes again and sent renewed shivers through her body, she wanted to simply run inside and tuck under the blankets until the weather improved.

It was obvious that enough days had passed to allow the group enough rest and recovery from their injuries that they were all getting prepared, _eager_ , to return to the fight. Usually they only would hold out in camp for no more than two days, and it was already onto the morning of day four, but R'chnt did not seem prepared to tell his group to move any time soon and get on with the hunt. Still, they were preparing.

R'chnt extended his immense patience and waited for her to regroup her efforts and perform the maneuver again. The motions were slow and stretching.

He had her arcing her arms, shifting her weight and holding, pressing into slow motion lunges and dropping into sustained crouches.

It reminded her of the Yoga classes she took a couple times, and suddenly the most unusual image of a Yautja in Yoga tights jumped into her mind causing her fail to stifle a giggle. R'chnt reminded her to focus, _again_ , in a slightly growled tone.

" _Sei-i,"_ K'Shai said with a nod, pressing her lips together and trying to focus back on the task at hand. "Sorry."

R'chnt growled. _"H'chak-au h'ko, hu-eilk-Yautjan." Do not apologize, and speak Yautja_.

She resisted the urge to apologize for apologizing and did a mental check to speak Yautjan when she had something to say. She was having a hard time thinking about much else but the cold running through her, and her words came easier in English, obviously.

Yautja did not have a word for an apology, it simply was not part of their language. The closest word to it was _h'chak_ , a word she had learned meant mercy or forgiveness, and in the proper context of use, could be construed as an apologetic term. R'chnt reminded her that it had no place in her vocabulary.

He moved in closely to her, helping her by direct guidance on correcting flaws in her position that he made her hold for unusually long periods of time.

He put his large hands on her shoulders and he gripped firmly, supporting her as she shook under him, shifting her weight, arcing her back, settling her into what could easily be viewed as a suggestive position by onlookers.

Just when she thought he was never going to stop with the lessons despite the inclement weather, he leaned in close to her, putting his head right near hers, his grip tightening on her shoulders for a moment as though he was gauging her discomfort, and approved of her efforts, releasing her to stop.

She sighed with relief and turned to retreat indoors.

He knew she was freezing, shivering, and discontented, but he noticed how she kept looking to the others sparring around her, readying for the renewal of the hunt. She had not complained, though her _h'dui'se_ told him she was most certainly miserable. He recalled his own training sessions under the violent tutelage of his own leader, so long ago.

K'vel-tar had been brutal and ferocious, but capable and wise, both on the hunt and towards his students. R'chnt could remember any one of hundreds of training sessions conducted in rain and mud, but it was the few hard lessons he endured in the cold of mountain peaks without even any _btja_ - _u'linja_ to warm him that had been the most difficult.

Yautja youth in training were permitted to wear old or damaged _awu'asa_ other hunters had cast aside. Most leaders kept a stock of discarded armor pieces; their working mechanics removed, for their students.

Getting the armor was a fight in of itself. Everything about the way Yautja were trained was to ensure that the strongest and most capable were rewarded with the best equipment. Lesser youngsters or lesser bloodlines would likely not survive _chiva_ and were not worth consideration or compassion.

To even attempt to help a friend get armor would certainly risk both the one too weak to get the reward, and the one foolish enough to hold himself back to help the other, being beaten by their peers or even their leader, possibly to death.

R'chnt, so young at the time that his tusks were mere nubs, had tackled over the others in his learning group to retrieve the very best armor scraps there were. He slept in his prizes, so proud of his first real trophy.

The armor was for some protection and allowed young hunters the first hints of familiarity with wearing it and moving in it. Naturally, the armor was non-functioning, and the net mesh that conducted heat was not present.

K'vel-tar, the proper leader he was, gave that no consideration when he sent his eight students into the mountains to track and kill a _djh-orn_ beast as a group with their bare hands. Five of the students returned. Two had died of the cold before they had even found their target, the other fell from the cliff when the animal lashed its tail.

It was one of many times R'chnt's endurance and stamina were put to the test before he had ever earned his Blooding mark. He taught his students in the same way, to prepare them for the hunt, challenging their endurance, abilities, and blood lines at every opportunity, forcing the best of them to rise to the challenge and the weak and incapable to falter as the gods saw fit.

As he had improved as a leader from a half a life time ago, students that vied for a chance to train with him and earn his recognition became more select, better, and the challenges he pushed on them became equally greater.

There was no room in the Yautja way of a hunter for those too weak or incompetent to endure. Such Yautja were nothing more than ' _asiegan,_ bound to spend their lives unblooded, unrecognized, deemed incapable, and condemned to serving other, better, accomplished, and stronger Yautja.

As he watched her small body shivering against the cold, her garments soaked, he felt a sense of pride in that, despite how much she no doubt wanted to, she did not complain or ask to stop. She endured on, displaying fortitude and strength he had come to know she had.

He was sure she thought what he was asking her to do, _kv'var_ training exercises that were the very foundation of all that she must come to know, was probably his idea of slow motion torture as the rain pummeled down, but she did not complain.

He had waited for it, too. He assumed, as the others in his group muttered when they thought he could not hear, that she would break and ask for reprieve. Instead, to his own surprise, it was her determined endurance that made him break first and dismiss her with praise for her efforts.

He had overheard some of the others in his group mumble that had any of them lost their composure, failed to hold a position, or shiver so furiously during training as she had, he likely would have beaten them until they got it right.

K'Shai, though, was not Yautja. She was trying to be something that was against her very breeding and nature to be, and he was pleased with her performance. He watched her disappear down the stairs on the side of the building and turned to W'rsa

"She rests now. In the morning, it will be time." R'chnt informed W'rsa.

He did not sleep that night at all. He mated with her twice and watched her rest peacefully next to him, warm and content nestled into his body. He had set it in his mind what needed to be done, what action must be taken to assure her place and protection, and he had spoken to Neh'rti of it twice already.

The first conversation with the Clan Leader, a formidable female who was elder even to R'chnt, had involved quite a bit of overt disbelief on her part, followed quickly by a flare of her temper as she tried to gauge whether or not he was manufacturing some poor attempt at a joke before she cut off communication with him, issuing a slew of curses as she did.

R'chnt was not in the least bit surprised to hear from the others in his group that some of the elder council had contacted them within minutes to verify the rumors they had heard that their Leader had lost his mind.

When Neh'rti, contacted him again to discuss his request to bring a human that he had mated with back to the clan ship for introduction into the clan via Blooding ceremony, she was calmer. He had already prepared a long winded list of her accomplishments and his opinion of her, only to be informed rather briskly that she had heard enough from the other council members and he was to bring her to the ship.

When they reached the shuttle in the morning, through the barely lifted fog, K'Shai did not hide her enthusiasm for the experience of her first ride into space. He was sure her people had gone to the stars before, but she had informed him that only a very small number of her kind had been given the privilege.

He was not quite sure what _privilege_ it was to go into space, but he found himself watching her with amusement as she eyed the stars, her own world, and all the other Yautja ships in orbit with wild wonder, pointing and vocalizing at everything she saw.

Once the shuttle was landed in the docking bay, he led her directly to the council hall and Neh'rti and the other eight members of the clan council, elders and arbitrators, six elders and two apprentices, filed into the room formally dressed.

K'Shai's uncontrolled nerves flooded his senses.

She stood quiet and tall as her attention was refocused from the trophies on the wall to the Yautja now silently scrutinizing her. K'Shai had been surveying one of the largest trophies in the room; a massive serpent that R'chnt had hunted single-handedly hundreds of years ago.

He brought the entire length of the thing, which he had stabbed no less than seven times in the raging ocean waters of a severe world that seemed to storm non-stop, back to the Clanship as a monument to his prowess, strength, and skill.

It secured his position as Leader and had marked the start of a new journey for him, though he was still young enough to have to work his way up through the ranks of Leadership as well.

Now as Neh'rti glared at K'Shai, R'chnt felt once again like a young hunter, bringing a new kind of trophy before the Clan, once again trying to secure a status, only this time not for himself. To say that K'Shai was frightened was an understatement.

She stood so close to him he could feel her elbow shaking against his hip, and he was sure that the others could smell the nervous _h'dui'se_ seeping from her. Neh'rti was aware of his intentions to Blood her as his own student and her approval to bring K'Shai back to the ship was an unspoken acceptance of that request.

She would never offer up vocal approval of K'Shai, nor verbally grant him permission to bring her into the Clan, but allowing him to bring her this far was as close as it he would get.

For the longest time, Neh'rti said nothing. She moved around K'Shai, surveying her, circling her. R'chnt knew that Neh'rti would take her to evaluate her in her own way while he made the arrangements for the ceremony.

She dismissed R'chnt after what seemed like an eternity, and although he was concerned for K'Shai's well-being, he knew he had little choice but to leave her to the females. He hurried out of the chambers as directed, making a point to Neh'rti that he was trying not to rattle her temper.

It was hours before he saw K'Shai again.

She joined him, looking puzzled and still full of apprehension, in a cantina as he sat with others of his elder Leader peers, awaiting her return. The others were all curious about her, eager to see her, though they were doing a poor job of hiding their bewilderment over the entire situation.

When K'Shai entered the room, the few hunters that were idling over their meals at nearby tables all raised their heads and ended their conversations mid-word, their eyes locked on the alien. R'chnt and the others stood immediately and he headed to her casually, but purposefully.

Her wafting scent in the air would offer confusing signals to the others, unfamiliar with the association of her particular scents to her mood. She was agitated and nervous, he knew, and relieved when she saw him.

Her scent would convey her stressed status as fear and weakness; it was not the message he wanted the others to pick up on. He vaguely wondered how many hunters or crew or ' _aseigan_ she had passed in the corridors.

Though she was female and had just come from the females' private sections of the ship, her lingering scent still put her at risk, even from a slave that might find himself brash enough to overtake her.

He flared his mandibles lightly as he approached K'Shai, displeased that Neh'rti would allow her to walk the corridors alone to find her way to him. Though he was impressed that she had found him, she was not yet trained in the Yautja way or ready to handle herself freely in the ship.

He was vaguely relieved that the ship was nearly empty now, as most of the hunters were on her world. Though between hunters stocking up on supplies for their groups, injured fighters taking advantage of a little break and taste of home and hundreds more of crew and slaves, there were plenty of threats to be found on the ship.

She was instantly relieved when he stood by her and, though he stayed wary of all around him, R'chnt felt more eased to elicit that response from her.

He introduced her to the elders as guided her to the chosen _kehrite_ that would serve the purpose of the Blooding ceremony. The servants had already been directed to set up the necessary supplies and K'Shai and R'chnt entered to find the training arena filling with females and any curious and available hunter that had heard the news.

He glanced across to a far entrance and noticed two crew workers and four ' _aseigan_ all staring into the large, oval room with wide expressions.

K'Shai took to the center of the room as he guided her, her musk still emanating nervousness, but noticeably more content in his presence. She stood between eight elders; R'chnt and four other males before her in a semicircle and Neh'tri and two other females staggered behind her.

As far as he was concerned, the Blooding ceremony was a mere formality; she had long since earned, and displayed, her scars and injuries that proved her mettle and ability and experience, but he seared the mark of his Clan into her forehead proudly. She winced at the pain but did not balk.

He had been reluctant to leave breeding marks on her because deliberately causing her pain was something he did not want to do, but there was no getting around that for the Blooding ceremony. He marked her as his student and she accepted the momentary sting of the branding without a fuss.

Her reaction to it, or lack thereof, would be scrutinized, and he chose not to forewarn her that it would hurt, because he did want her to appear more tense than she already was.

The Blooding would be a test of her strength and stoicism. What a Yautja could endure – pain, hardships, challenges – was always put to the test. Something as routine as a Blooding mark should never cause a warrior to flinch; it was a proud honor to have the mark of their Leader carved into the head of a youngster.

It was the symbol that the youngster would forever wear, proudly displaying that they had earned their place in the Clan. K'Shai accepted it with the same grace and honor he would expect of any Yautja; a look of trust in her eye as he cut into her flesh that only he recognized.

He had been questioned multiple times if he really did mate with her and he knew her lack of bite marks from his tusks were some of the cause of the disbelief that it was true. He kept silent on his thoughts about the pleasures she could provide, trying his best to avoid any jealousy that could put her in jeopardy.

After the Blooding ceremony, R'chnt guided K'Shai through the corridors to the temple where he would conduct another ritual with her.

It was a hardly recognized ancient custom, and when he stated his intentions to perform it before the other elders and council, they all had a brief discussion trying to recall when the last time it had even been formally observed. R'chnt thought it necessary, even beyond the Blooding mark, and made his point to the council who obliged, as it made no difference to them anyway.

Soon, they were seated on the floor amongst a circle of elders, council, and curious spectators once again. This time sharing drops of their own blood in a chalice as R'chnt bonded her to him by blood and himself to her.

They drank from the chalice as the ceremony continued and K'Shai, who eyed him with pride and peace, reached for his hand as she leaned in to kiss him.

Suddenly, R'chnt felt as though he has been electrocuted, and in his mind he entered into a state of _aa'zu-dje_. He saw fog; he saw K'Shai reaching for him. And just as soon as he did, he heard voices in the room around him calling to both of them. It was a curious thing; a vision from the gods, he knew.

He was sure the blood bond was consummated and the vision had been the gods' way of showing him that they were intended to share the Path as one. He thought nothing more on it by the time they had settled back into the shuttle for the return trip to Earth.

The shuttle had been filled with supplies by the _'aseigan_ while he attended to important matters, and K'Shai seemed distracted by the effects of the vision and her second trip into space. He changed the course of the shuttle to give her a brief tour of the sights, distracting her further from whatever seemed to be weighing on her mind.

He considered only briefly that perhaps she seemed so concerned because she was regretting making the blood bond when she slid into the command chair atop him, turning away from the view of the planet she called _"Jupiter."_

He stretched his body and his tusks as she kissed and touched him, groping him, and stirring him into full arousal. R'chnt groaned in pleasure as she eagerly unstrapped his belts and armor, an action she had put well into practice and had mastered.

She stroked her hands over his rapidly inflating erection and cooed and moaned as she felt him begin to drip while he growled an aroused purr. He could smell her wetness and readiness and another scent in the air from her that he had noticed days before, but did not recognize. He was still getting familiar with her ever changing scent.

K'Shai slid back off him, removed her own garments and requested him out of the chair with a thin smile. She crawled into the massive command chair, back against him, knees on the hard metal seat.

R'chnt stepped in behind her. She leaned forward, clamping her small hands around the back rest of the chair, shifting on the thin padding under her knees until she was more comfortable. He groaned and growled a multi-tonal rumble that bounced between a soothing purr of pleasure and an eager growl of anticipation until she was positioned to her liking and he grappled her hips, sliding himself into her easily.

He rounded his back over her, lowering his tusks to her shoulders and neck, tickling them teasingly as he smelled the sweet and enticing aroma that poured off her. She smelled entirely different to him, and although he could not quite place the scents exactly, for they were such a strange mixture of alien world and familiar Yautja musk, they aroused him.

Her body emanated a combination of her own aroused state and his musk, as if they blended together from somewhere deep within her and seeped through her pores as she groaned and huffed below him. He shut his eyes, feeling the entire length of her tract squeeze against him as he entered her and she bellowed.

R'chnt flexed his mandibles, clicking his tusks as he withdrew and pressed forward, tipping and flexing his hips, rocking over his feet, sliding through her tract slowly, allowing every sensitive inch of skin between them to share in the sensations.

She huffed and moaned under him, her delicate little body stretching and clenching in time to match his penetrations. He slid his shaft nearly completely out to the tip, rumbling in sheer delight at the tingling thrill that shot through his body and listening to her pant and groan as he slid himself back in.

She adjusted her position, rocking her hips just enough to allow him a deeper penetration and she moaned loudly, eeking out a whispered request for more between her huffing breaths. He quickened his thrusts, faster and harder with each forward press, watching her body heat rise to match his own as the both bellowed in ecstasy.

He gripped her body tightly, sliding his hands from her hips along her abdomen, settling them on her breasts, which elicited louder satisfied moans from her. He rubbed his tusks and cheeks against her soft skin, pressing his abdomen against her back as he covered her completely in his musk, letting her tender warmth tingle him to the core as he pumped her.

K'Shai, completely distracted from the stars and planets, ships, and any other concerns she had, panted and moaned in perfect rhythm with R'chnt's own chuffing breaths. He too had allowed any thoughts or concerns evacuate from his mind as he focused solely on the feeling of her body under him, around his shaft, wet, hot, trembling in delight, and full of pleasure until he filled her with his heated juices.

When they returned to the planet, the group resupplied, the shuttle returned to the _jag'd'atoll_ under its own guidance, and K'Shai was returned to the safety of her own group as R'chnt departed ways so the hunt could continue.

They tracked scattered trails of the _kainde amedha_ they hunted for days. While aboard the clan ship, R'chnt was at least able to personally check on the continued status of the hunt and confirmed what he had already suspected; that planet-wide, the hives were being eliminated so thoroughly, the remaining ones were farther and farther between.

The Yautja had been performing honorably and thoroughly, as they should, doing their species proud trying to correct the dishonor that had been cast upon them by bad blood. His one wish was that he could have found any of the cowards who had done this to the world, and present its head to K'Shai as a gift.

Whether or not any of the ones involved in this disgrace were even still alive, he did not know, though he had been tasked with killing some of the kin that shared the bloodlines with the disgraced ones.

He was available, and closest, to several who carried dishonored blood in their veins, so he had culled four adult males and three juvenile males from the gene pool.

Only females handled issues amongst females, and R'chnt had killed the juvenile males that had been expunged from the safety of the _mei'sa_ where the females harbored them while they turned on two juvenile females that also shared the same blood. Killing his own, especially in such a manner, was little more than a massacre and it made R'chnt fill with detest that he had to do such a thing; there was no honor in the killing, but there was also only disgrace in the bloodlines, so the culling was for the benefit of the Yautja people.

As he led his group back after seven rotations of the sun of Earth from a completed hunt, he thought quietly about the dishonor that his own people were capable of, and how K'Shai, alien as though she was, still stood with honor at his side, surpassing anyone's expectation of her thus far.

He knew Neh'rti was sure that K'Shai would likely fail, but her willingness to allow the Blooding of an alien into the Clan demonstrated her trust in R'chnt's opinion that K'Shai would never cause such a dishonor or disgrace to her, to him, to the Clan.

He knew that she was simply not capable of such a thing anyway. Despite her tenacity to survive and her desire to learn and please him in a Yautja way, he knew K'Shai valued honor and respected life; qualities which the bad bloods who had done this to her world clearly lacked.

He greeted her, eager to return to her, after so many passed days and she delighted in seeing him. She smiled widely at the first sight of him; a stunned face amongst a camp full of stunned faces all turned in his direction as he rode to her atop an animal.

His group caught the beasts idly wandering through vacated streets. He did not know the human name for the creatures, but a similar beast inhabited Yaut, and R'chnt had learned, as all do in the mei'sa, to ride the _j'kur_.

He extended his arm and gripped her tightly, drawing her up onto the back of the animal, and catching her unusual scent as he did.

At first, he thought either it was stronger, or his absence from her for so many days made the _n_ ' _dui'se_ more pronounced, then he realized there was a new life in her womb. She was _pregnant_ ; something he had only briefly pondered as a possibility, and dismissed it out of certainty that they were too different in nature to produce offspring.

It was obvious by the conversation that night before she fell asleep soothingly warmed in his arms, that she was delighted over her pregnancy, though she was nervous.

K'Shai was surprised that R'chnt recognized her condition the moment he helped her onto the horse. She didn't know how, but assumed it was his incredibly capable sense of smell that allowed it.

Later in the evening as they talked, he confirmed it was her scent that announced it, but also admitted he did not recognize the unfamiliar combination of human and Yautja _n'dui'se_ , and confirmed her condition with a quick scan from his biohelmet, which he showed her.

She was amazed by the look of her own world, her own body, through the display in the helmet. What struck her as blurry constantly moving waves of color that she could barely discern and almost made her a little motion sick, were to him, a highly detailed scan that allowed him to see what human eyes could not.

She knew the Yautja had different visual acuity than humans, and the biohelmet merely amplified and accentuated their natural abilities. She gazed through the helmet for a long while, watching the little peanut-sized red dot in her belly in amazement.

It was impossible for her to tell that the little blob was actually a new life based on what she saw, but she watched in wonder all the same.

She knew before she had even pressed the little button to run the do-it-yourself test that morning that she was pregnant, the test was just a formality. She had worried about R'chnt while he was gone for so long, certain that he would not return; the blood filled images of her vision plaguing her mind.

R'chnt had shared the same vision, but he saw it differently. He did not see himself covered in what could only be his blood. He did not hear the odd voice echo that spoke to her of her strong heart. She feared it was his imminent death that the Yautja gods had showed her and though she was contented by his presence and rested comfortably against his healthy and warm body, she still feared for him, and now for the life inside her.

K'Shai needed him. She had blood bonded herself to him and she had linked not only her own life, but a new life, to him. She tried to put aside the fear she felt for his safety, and during his absence, she tried to put into practice the hunting skills he was teaching her.

She had gone deer hunting with three others at their request, hoping her new found abilities from her ' _alien friend'_ would be put to good use.

She was infuriated with their inability to track in silence, and how they strode so heavily through the woods, scanning for deer when they felt like being quiet enough to do so, hoping to find one through luck.

She tried to correct them, hissing quiet warnings to them to be silent, but the outing seemed to have less to do with actual hunting than it did with a way to gossip and chatter out of earshot of the others.

She separated herself from the group, tracked by sight the way R'chnt had guided her, and returned to the group later that night with a doe, spear still sticking out through the chest.

She did not remove it because she was proud she managed to kill it with a single shot and without R'chnt there to pad her on the back, she at least wanted to display her growing skills to the very group she intended to feed.

They looked at her with surprise as she dragged the animal behind her. While Lewis and Carlos thanked her for the meal and her efforts, they also warned her she should not have left the group and should not go out alone.

She did not know her condition at that point, and would have thought twice if she had, but she would never have gotten a deer in the company she was with, and although she brought the group food and sat with them at the camp fire and ate, she never felt more outcast from them than before that night.

She knew full well what the humans said about the Yautja when they weren't around; what they called them. _Big Bastards. Ugly fuckers. Fuck Face._

The very group, the very people that were protecting them, scouring the planet at a risk of their own annihilation, were the brunt of whispered insults and disrespect.

Of course, the humans respected – feared- the Yautja enough to keep their eyes diverted away whenever they were around, and willingly accept direction as the Yautja offered, but whenever they were out of sight and earshot from the human group, the disparaging comments would begin again.

They had their own names for R'chnt especially, and from the very beginning, had dubbed him _Earl._

They never called him that name when they suspected he might be within earshot and as the months progressed, they stopped calling him it when she was around.She turned a deaf ear to the gossip about her, who would choose to be with the _Big Ole' Gray Fucker._

The first person to call him that had a thick accent the words came out sounding more like Earl Gray, thus the name was born as an inside joke. As she sat chewing a meaty slice of her venison kill, she realized that the gossip and name calling had turned to outright fear of her too.

When she found out she was pregnant, she chose to share the new with Lewis and Carlos only, though Nancy picked up on "the glow" she said K'Shai was emanating. K'Shai had only found out the very morning R'chnt returned on the back of a giant draught horse.

The next day, she had more of a chance to talk to Nancy about motherhood, idly casting glances to Kelly as they discussed the possible differences between a human child and a Yautja hybrid.

By the following evening, she had told R'chnt that she had been feeling differently. Not sick, as was typical for humans, but _stronger_ , like she was changing somehow, and credited it to the Yautja blood churning inside her womb.

As she pressed her lips against him once again and undressed him in a field near a pond where they made camp a short distance away from both groups, she demonstrated her vigor to him, urging him harder and faster, letting him get more aggressive in his penetrations as she huffed and bellowed her approval.

The following morning, she straddled him as he laid on his back and pleasured herself readily as he pumped her powerfully.

When a small group of humans found them, they approached with the same look of alarm that he had come to expect from the species, and amused himself with the thought of how oddly similar the look was to the very animals K'Shai called _deer_ that they would hunt for meat.

It was just then that W'rsa had sent him a transmission from a human outpost being openly broadcasted and by nightfall, R'chnt was guiding K'Shai and her group on what would be the final stretch of the journey of the Yautja and humans together.

K'Shai was in child and as he discussed with her during the trek to the human encampment, he needed her to rejoin the females aboard the _jag'd'atoll_. It was proper. It was expected.

There were experienced mothers who could help K'Shai along, and she would be safer in the mei'sa that the females had aboard the ship to raise offspring away from the males. R'chnt, like every other male adult Yautja, knew nothing about child bearing or rearing.

It was not a necessary part of their lives and one that he was not involved in at all. K'Shai expressed a very different view on family groups than he was used to, though he had witnessed the human family connection many times during his time observing her group.

Males and females raised their offspring together until the child was of such an age to venture out on its own, if it did at all, he had learned.

The concept of such things made no sense at all, and for days while he watched K'Shai interact with her group, gaining knowledge from experienced mothers of her own kind while the tiny thing in her womb grew slowly and steadily, its little legs sometimes twitching so subtly she could not even feel the movement that he could see, he tried to watch the sires of the children in her group to see how they interacted, and how it benefitted the youth at all.

Yautja males had nothing to do with their own children and R'chnt was apprehensive at best about the idea of K'Shai's insistence that he would remain in his hybrid child's life. He wondered what the females would think of that, and doubted it would go over well, but K'Shai remained adamant in her gentle way.

She rested comfortably with him, made it clear to him that she _needed_ him in both her and the offspring's life, and had absolutely no intention of raising the child in the mei'sa without him.

"Neh'rti will not like that at all, K'Shai." He warned her with a careful growl. "It is not the Yautja way."

"Well, Neh'rti has noticed that I am not Yautja." K'Shai said simply and left it at that before distracting him with her tongue against his skin, something she was quite capable of.

Her sexual desires had been slowly amplifying and the strong scent of her, which was becoming more Yautja-esque as the fetus in her abdomen grew, was causing a stir amongst the males. Yautja females preferred to stay in a group away from male interference after breeding; rarely were bred females ever alone in community areas, and certainly never alone in male company.

The infants were born outside of male observation, in the protection of the mei'sa where they would be raised until such a time that they were ready to prepare for their first hunt under the tutelage of an instructor; males with males, females with females.

The signals from females were always clear. When they were bred they were not available for mating again in their lifetime.

Mating was for reproduction, and although it was a pleasurable experience for any Yautja male, females did not extend themselves for pure pleasure, as K'Shai did so naturally. When they were fertile and ready to mate, females would drive males into a fury, and once bred, the female was finished for life.

Lucky males, strong enough to endure the rigors of the mating season challenges, would breed multiple times in a single season with several different females.

K'Shai was bred, but she was also ready for mating, and her conflicting scent was having the same effect on R'chnt as well as the others in his group. Though they were respectful enough of R'chnt to know their boundaries with her, some of the newest straggling Yautja additions they had picked up, from another clan, offered no such discrimination.

R'chnt could sense the trio of youngsters' Leader's musk, oozing with challenge to his authority. Though they were from another Clan, they were not rivals, and R'chnt issued a powerful blow again and again to the smug youngblood, to put him in his rightful place, at his feet.

The effect did not produce the intended result, and in the early morning after two rounds of wildly pleasurable mating in which K'Shai challenged R'chnt to physically wearing him out of his own sex drive, a high pitched shriek of one of the human offspring shattered the still air, and R'chnt knew immediately K'Shai was in grave danger.

He charged as quickly as he could towards the growing commotion as humans from the opposite end of the camp came running onto the scene, weapons at the ready.

The rest of his group followed sharply behind him, but stopped in their tracks in surprise, gauging the scene as it unfolded while R'chnt tore into the youngblood, who had only become Leader a few days earlier when his own Leader faltered, slamming him into the ground a dozen feet from K'Shai, who clattered to the ground in a bloody heap.

He paused long enough to notice W'rsa grab her up and get her to a safer distance before he turned on the youngster while his two companions, glued to the ground ten meters away, stood in horror, doing nothing.

The humans wielded their weapons, but held off the triggers while they shouted as the children shrieked and wailed. R'chnt was aware of it all. He could hear K'Shai's trembling sobs in between ragged breaths; the youngblood had gripped her so tightly he was crushing her chest and she was having difficulty breathing.

R'chnt slammed the disrespectful youngster again and again, drawing his spear and running it through his thighs one at a time; intended to kill him, but slowly, pointedly, ensuring his two companions knew what fate await them next.

Again and again R'chnt slammed the defiant youngster, breaking his jaw, cracking his skull, shattering ribs, drawing gushing bursts of blood, spreading it over a large circle between the humans and the Yautja, who all looked on in stunned and horrified silence. R'chnt was furious, but kept his focus sharp and clear, while the struggling youth filled with rage, bellowed like a brute, and clumsily flung himself forward again and again, fatiguing with each exertion as his life's blood poured from him.

He still managed to draw in enough breath to curse R'chnt and K'Shai; to call them both disgraces; to call the offspring he had intended to gut from her womb an abomination. He tried to incite R'chnt's temper enough to make him lose focus, never realizing that his temper was fully incited, but his focus would not fail him.

In a last desperate attempt, he changed attacks and lunged towards K'Shai after R'chnt had struck him hard enough to send him flying her general direction.

R'chnt bolted towards the coward as K'Shai bellowed out a howl that sounded nothing like her usually quiet-voiced human self could even make, and slammed the knife that had once been embedded through her own thigh, into his chin, the tip of it coming out the back of her attacker's skull.

There was a quiet that filled the air as even R'chnt came to a halt and gauged the situation in surprise. K'Shai trembled for a moment, one side of her body covered in deep red blood, the other dripping now with bright green fluids, then collapsed.

He and the medic Gr'tyun-de tended to her and her human companions likewise came to check on her condition. Her closest two friends approached R'chnt a short while later.

One of them that he knew was called Lewis, bravely confronting R'chnt. In any other possible situation, R'chnt would have taken the obvious anger and the biting tone as his other companions tried futilely to hold him back, as a direct challenge to his authority, but R'chnt held his ground and kept his weapons holstered.

The human had no weapon drawn and was expressing concern for the welfare of his friend, which R'chnt understood.

"I will protect K'Shai," R'chnt assured Lewis, backing him off as he donned the familiar surprised look on his face.

R'chnt was sure, positive, he had spoken the proper words correctly. He had been getting lessons in English from K'Shai just as she was learning Yautjan from him.

Lewis took a moment to gain his composure then responded, somewhat more calmly.

"Well, that does a hell of a lot of good if you're not around. What if you die? What happens to her? She's crazy about you. She loves you. She'll follow you to hell for Christ's sake. How are you going to protect her?"

Valid points, R'chnt thought, although some of the words the human spoke made no sense. _Love?_ What was that? What was _Hell?_ What was a _Christ's sake_? He would have to ask K'Shai about those things, he thought, but still, the human male named Lewis made noteworthy concerns, especially given K'Shai's pregnancy.

This was exactly why she needed to be returned to the Clan ship, to gestate, bear, and raise the offspring amongst the females as a proper Yautja.

Though, in the time he spent watching her and his child grow, learning about her customs and expectations when it came to raising a child, the idea of not seeing either of them again, not having her to mate with, not knowing the child she insisted he should, did not appeal to him at all.

He needed her as much as she needed him, and somehow, he had determined as she did, that they were just going to make it work, assuming he lived long enough to see the end of the war.

It was days later when they reached the destination, which K'Shai had said was a pick up point some distance from the safe camp.

Though the pick up point had been centered amid a cleared area, R'chnt's proximity alarm notified him and his group that one of the other groups working in the area had chased up a straggling hive and were in pursuit of several drones and their queen.

He warned K'Shai to clear the area and she urged new humans to safety. They protested and the delay had given the _kainde amedha_ queen time to charge onto the scene with her offspring and wreak havoc.

In the fray, the very building they had gone to the top of for a better tactical vantage point, collapsed partially thanks to a combination of acid blood and furious weapon fire from two working teams of Yautja hunters, along with a few hastily lobbed human explosive capsule weapons.

K'Shai prompted R'chnt to help free trapped humans under some debris then he commanded her to get clear, drew his spear and darted off with the other two hunters beside him towards the queen.

He jumped onto the rooftop of a nearby building, tore across it and leapt into the air, aimed for the back of the massive creature.

A ground force of hunters shot and speared at the thing as she hissed her deadly shriek and whipped her tail furiously, slamming hunters out of her way.

R'chnt was aware of the sounds of shattering helmets, breaking bone. This queen bore scars on her lengthy ridged crown; signs of other attacks from other Yautja. The very length of her crown, the width of her head, the number of spines down her back, all spoke that this queen had developed long ago; perhaps even one of the first to spawn on this world.

She fought cleverly, savagely; displaying her sharp intelligence that allowed her to survive as long as she clearly had.

When he clattered to her back and gripped one of those spines for support, she reared back wildly, thoroughly distracted from the Yautja at her feet surrounding her. He noticed, barely, that she had small holes spattered throughout her sides and out her back, evidence of human attempts to bring her down.

This queen was as fearsome as they come, he knew immediately. He vaguely thought her skull would make a worthy trophy in his home.

She spun around, jumping off the ground, whipping wildly trying to stab the intruder upon her with her tail, shrieking a high pitched call to any of her drone offspring who were alive, urging them to come to her aide.

R'chnt received covering fire from the other hunters and raised his spear. He powered it down through the back of her skull and the animal's fearsome hissing turned immediately into a gurgled choke. Instead of dropping in shock, accepting her death, this creature bucked at the very notion that she could be killed.

She whipped around wildly, throwing him off balance. He grabbed onto his spear lodged in her skull for support and it yanked loose, sending him skidding down her back. He quickly, reactively, impaled her with his _dah'kte_ blades on his right wrist, drawing a spray of acid that hit his hide and fizzed as it seared into him.

He pulled himself back up the twisting animal and aimed his spear again, lodging it for a second time at the back of her skull, pushing so hard it came out her upper jaw and pierced through her inner jaw before it lodged into her lower jaw, at a sharp angle just behind her teeth.

A shame he had to punch so many holes into the mighty thing's skull, but it would still be a worthwhile trophy. What a fearsome creature she was, he thought respectfully as she finally collapsed below him, striking the ground so resentfully hard it nearly unfooted him again.

He slid off the queen's side, checking her over carefully to ensure she was dead. Sometimes a creature, as cunning as this one, might try to get the better of him with a clever stunt. He paused, watched her and gauged her condition.

Convinced she was dead, he looked about to the rest of the two groups of hunters, who were scattered and strewn in bloody heaps throughout the street, slowly regathering through the smoke and dust from such constant weapons fire.

R'chnt rounded the fallen queen's mighty head, raised his chin and straightened his back. He was injured, but the acid from the _kainde amedha_ blood was something Yautja were well resistant to. The blood that could kill any other form of life he ever knew, was actually working against itself on his skin, cauterizing the very wounds they created, keeping him from bleeding worse.

They would leave scars, he knew, but they would be proud scars he would wear with confidence. This was a worthy opponent.

He barely heard the hiss. He barely registered the gathering hunters before him jump into action. He barely felt pain. Suddenly his world went numb.

He felt out of place, not really sure what was happening. He thought he was flying and as the solid brick wall of a building he was quickly speeding towards approached, he only had the faintest idea what had happened.

His focus was lost, his vision blurred, he could barely breathe. He looked about through the smoke-filled street and saw K'Shai, screaming in a panic, running towards him, arms extended to him as she crouched down.

He knew what was happening. He was still on the Clan ship, in his vision during their blood bonding ceremony. This was what he had seen; K'Shai coming to him reaching for him through a cloud of smoke.

He must have imagined everything else, because he remembered this well. She was sobbing; she looked upset though he was not sure why. The blood bond was for her protection, so she would be safer.

He tried to speak to her, he tried to reach for her, but he was not sure he was making words, he was not sure he was moving. She was clearly speaking, wailing, but yet if she was making sound, he could not hear. She was touching him, he saw her hands on him, but he did not feel.

He tipped his head back and the world fell dark.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

It was dark. There was stillness.

The silence tore at K'Shai. She wanted there to be commotion, somehow it seemed more appropriate. Sitting in the quiet dark of the medical room, listening to nothingness was agitating, unsettling.

The ambient heat added to her discomfort as she sat sweating, having stripped down to nothing but her tank top, bra, and jeans which she cut off to shorter than Daisy Dukes. She had even removed her shoes and socks in an effort to help stay cool.

The dim amber hue of the back lighting behind the barely illuminated the red-tinged metal walls, emitted heat, making the ship essentially a giant oven, perfectly suited for the Yautja, and incredibly uncomfortable for a human.

The only additional light sources were the bright white and red flickers information that scrolled along a series of monitors above her head, above the bed where R'chnt lay in deadly silence.

She thought about removing her bra and shorts, doubting anyone would notice or care, but the discomfort of the heat in the _jag'd'atoll_ Clan ship was the least of her worries.

She wanted activity; commotion. She wanted a bustling busy scene; a distraction from the silence, the waiting, the nothing that was slowly suffocating her.

The only sounds she could hear were those of her heart beating frantically in an alarmed pace that had not ceased in days, and the weak, raspy breathing of R'chnt, which she could only hear if she held her own and put her ear near his mouth.

He was so strong, so proud, so powerful, full of life and vibrancy that never conveyed his four-hundred-thirty years of existence.

R'chnt was mighty. He was a warrior. He was cunning and intelligent and deadly. He had survived and hunted and lived as a Yautja should, and she had come to know him as nothing more than a totem of alien confidence and certainty; her steady and strong rock that could power through anything.

Now, as she sat next to him, refusing to leave his side, she clung to his hand, rested her cheek against his chest and held her breath, listening for those two powerful hearts pounding away inside that had always brought her comfort and reassurance.

One had stopped entirely, the other had been beating so weakly and erratically that the smooth and steady rhythm she could rely on to soothe her was gone.

For days, she listened to him struggle to breathe while his body fought to recover as his second heart slowly resumed normal function, weakly, thanks to keen medical intervention from L'ruch, the elder healer of the _Kaunte Dar'een_ Clan charged with tending to the needs of the hunters that came to him for treatment of their injuries.

K'Shai had watched him work on R'chnt, when his battered and gored body was brought from her world to the Clan ship after prompting a visit from Neh'rti herself to gauge the events that had occurred.

K'Shai was barely aware of what had transpired after it all happened. It seemed like time froze and flew by all at the same time, like she had no real power to understand what was going on while everyone else whirred around her.

W'rsa had said leave R'chnt to die; not out of desire to take his place, nor desire to see K'Shai pained by the loss, but because it was the Yautja way.

R'chnt had lived a powerful, noble, fearsome life, and was honored with status higher than most others of his kind ever achieved. It was right, it was proper, it was _expected_ that he should die with honor in battle on a hunt, exactly as had taken place.

Her body shook, she clenched her jaw tightly, fighting the urge to vomit from anxiety, stress, and panic as she watched Carlos work quickly to tend the wounds, barking orders to nurses and Lewis and any available hand nearby who could help while W'rsa stood questioning her motives.

K'Shai had tuned out of the scene entirely. Her hands and shirt and pants were soaked in R'chnt's blood, her skin was pale, and she felt ready to collapse.

She clinged to him, squeezing his hands, unrestrained tears falling down her cheeks as she sobbed over him, then she fell silent, standing over him watching the trauma unfold around her like a movie on fast-forward.

R'chnt had started convulsing, someone cried out to hold him down and even W'rsa moved in to do so along with one other Yautja; Human and Yautja together, working over R'chnt for her sake, trying to save his life and neither group really knowing or understanding why.

Carlos moaned a concerned evaluation of the injuries. Skin, fat, muscle, and internal organs he had no idea the function of, were tattered and shredded. Arteries were spewing blood and Lewis who had been tasked with listening to R'chnt's heart rate had announced it to Carlos.

"I've got two-eighty, maybe three hundred, it's hard to…"

"That's more than four times…" Carlos had started. "He's in massive shock. Hold him!"

K'Shai recalled that was when she tuned out. Everything and everyone bustled around her while it was just her and R'chnt in the stillness amidst the storm.

He was seizing, gurgling, coughing rattled breaths, spewing blood from his mouth, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, his skin turning pale.

K'Shai could not move, breath, or do anything except stand in shocked horror, fighting the urge to collapse. She vaguely recalled noticing the sun billowing in from the afternoon sky through the window nearby.

It seemed so strange to her that the sun could be shining so happily oblivious to what was transpiring on the conference table-turned operating table, under a spotlight of duct-taped together flashlights someone was holding.

When she refocused herself, she removed his belts and body armor with W'rsa's help, exposing his body from the chest down to the thighs so Carlos could access the injuries more easily.

"I'm going to try to stop this bleeding. If there's some kind of medical facility on his ship, he really should be taken there right now."

She looked to W'rsa, who called for a shuttle after some additional protest that this was not the Yautja way. K'Shai did not care if he thought the gods were calling R'chnt; she would fight them, she would not lose him.

Carlos had said the shuttle was too far out, too long of a ride; R'chnt did not have that kind of time, so he got to work doing the best he could, announcing his observations and process as he went.

Whether he was looking for help, correction, or guidance, she did not know, but no one spoke except for W'rsa who warned K'Shai again to leave R'chnt's fate to the gods. The medic of the Yautja group was dead and any additional help was simply too far out.

"He will not live," W'rsa said again.

She watched him now, laying in utter quiet stillness and thought back to the events of that afternoon. She turned on W'rsa; an anger raging in her that she had not ever experienced before; certainly not towards any Yautja.

She struck him, screaming, crying, fueled with shock and confusion. W'rsa backed away, bowing his head respectfully, taken by surprise by her sudden outburst.

She did not even notice the look of complete shock on the humans gathered around who were stunned that anyone would dare start beating a massive alien hunter with their fists while screaming at him.

W'rsa turned to leave the room as Carlos demanded everyone who did not need to be there get out. K'Shai did not let go of her grip on W'rsa's arm and quieted herself, asking him to stay, which he did.

Eventually, she wasn't sure quite when, he left. It was long after Carlos did all he could and R'chnt was lowered to the floor to rest on a clean spot of blankets.

She tucked herself against him and tried to hear those powerful hearts, but the familiar and comforting sound was gone. When Neh'rti appeared hours later, she greeted K'Shai and R'chnt respectfully, but did not hide her surprise that he was still alive or her disgust that it had been managed at the hands of aliens.

He was taken back to the Clan ship and put under the care of the elder healer L'ruch, who was currently tapping buttons on a computer console in of the adjacent rooms. The healer's clinic, the _jurite_ , was fully equipped to handle any medical emergency, although L'ruch did not repress his comments that he had never seen anyone survive such an injury.

"I am amazed he has made it this far, especially with such _primitive_ medical attention. Look at this!"

He growled as he pointed to R'chnt's bandages and stitched together wounds to the onlookers in the room, Neh'rti, two other elders one male and one female, L'ruch's two male assistants, and K'Shai, standing stock still next to R'chnt amidst all the Yaujta, not sure what exactly was wrong with the fantastic repair job Carlos had done that saved his life.

L'ruch promptly lasered the whole thing open, draining blood, cutting sutures and preparing to heal the injuries the Yautja way.

"Keep me advised," Neh'rti grumbled as she left the elder healer to do his work, K'Shai standing numb at R'chnt's side, still clinging to him.

L'ruch nodded as the extraneous Yautja turned and removed themselves from the round _jurite_ , then turned back to R'chnt and eyed K'Shai, but said nothing as he worked with his two assistants to attend to R'chnt injuries, narrating the damages as he performed the surgery to repair the wounds.

"This is too damaged. Needs to be removed."

He indicated what looked like intestine and promptly, the assistants cut it away using long instruments to grab the tissue and cauterize cuts and fuse fresh tissue together.

K'Shai slowly scanned her eyes across R'chnt's tattered and bloody body, back and forth again and again, trying to process how it was that he was not the mighty and unsinkable fortress she naively envisioned.

The thought that he could not be killed was just foolish. He was powerful and bold, cunning and ferocious, but he was still flesh and blood. The sight of him laying as he was, unconscious, bruised, battered, swollen, bleeding, was unimaginable and even after hours had passed, it still had not settled in her mind that he was really so badly injured.

She silently chastised herself for even thinking it; blindly disregarding every time he returned with a cut, a gouge, a broken bone, as if that was all the damage he could ever possibly sustain; just enough that a couple days' of rest could whisk away.

It was easy, though, she considered, to think of him as an unbreakable force. His vast experience and skill proved that he had never been so severely injured before because he was unstoppable. She lowered her eyes and watched her own fingers tenderly stroke his arm she had not let go of the entire time.

She slowly caressed his skin, now free of all of his armor, and felt the texture of it. She could feel how tough and thick it was and the gaping hole in his side had confirmed that to her; Yautja skin was far thicker and stronger than human skin.

R'chnt's skin, grayed from his age, still had contrasting shades that were like a shadow of his once no doubt brightly patterned hide.

Even within his own group of hunters, K'Shai had already learned that the colorful variation of Yautja skin was diverse. Aboard the Clan's ship, she had noticed colors ranging from almost solid black, even on the lightest areas, to blues, reds, and every imaginable shade of brown, green, and yellow possible.

Some Yautja color patterns were blotchy and circular, dark interconnecting colors highlighted with brighter rusts and yellows, all flowing along the lines of their muscles and sides, draped over a pale base visible along their thighs, abdomens, chest, and head.

Some of the patterns looked more like stripes, like a tiger, as W'rsa's coloration was, and K'Shai had noticed a few Yautja that seemed to sport both stripes and spots; a hybrid of sorts, she presumed.

Beneath the naturally tough hide and a thin layer of fat cushion, was a dense layer of connective tissue that Carlos had commented on after having seen the innards of a Yautja for the third time.

The fibrous layer was as tough as braided nylon, he said, comprised of a mesh work of thin layers of staggered lattice fibers, creating quite literally, a flexible, stretchable, puncture resistant shield over the muscles and precious internal organs.

Suddenly, the amount of trauma that a Yautja could endure and survive had made perfect sense to Carlos, and he explained to anyone who turned a working ear towards him how well built for extreme survival the alien body clearly was.

L'ruch commented in much the same way, noting how much sheer force was involved to go through not one, but two different layers of protection twice.

The _kianda amedha_ queen had impaled R'chnt from the back, a few inches below the end of his protective chest armor and the tip of the tail had emerged through his front, just above his hip, before she sent him flying, whipping him off of her and into the side of a building some forty feet away on the opposite side of the street, which as L'ruch informed during his progress, accounted for the heavy bruising below his protective chest armor.

The armor itself, combined with a thin layer of leathery padding atop R'chnt's thick and resilient skin, densely formed protective tissues, and powerful, well developed musculature, all likely worked together to save him from dying on impact due to blunt force rupture of internal organs, L'ruch surmised.

The Yautja armor, K'Shai had slowly begun to learn thanks to R'chnt's teachings, was comprised of an alien metal known as _dlex_ that he said was mined on a moon in the system of their home world.

Though he did not know the composition of the ore, R'chnt had informed K'Shai that _dlex_ was truly resistant to any force he had ever known.

The metal could slow the damaging acidic blood of the _kainde amedha,_ not melting completely through. It was resistant to a variety of weapon fire, acted like a grounding base for electrical impulses, absorbed shock, and even in raw form, it took incredible heat to melt the ore in order to form it.

Dlex workers were well respected for their skills with the ore, turning it into not only armor and weapons which could cut through anything, but also ship hulls, tethers, chains, and even mixed with flexible additives to create the protective neck bracers the Yautja wore to cover their vital blood supplies.

As L'ruch lectured his way through R'chnt's body, K'Shai strained herself to try to follow along with the conversation, but as he began to talk about specific organs, the words became confusing and she understood less of the conversation.

She knew enough from asking R'chnt that he had two muscular hearts, one large and powerful and the other smaller, less powerful, but still essential. It served as a backup, helping the main heart pump more fresh blood faster, to allow the Yautja incredible speed, stamina, and athletic ability.

When R'chnt relaxed enough, and the secondary heart was not immediately needed to jolt blood through his system, it would become flaccid, so much so that it vibrated itself and eventually his entire chest, creating the deep internal purr that she would shut her eyes and listen to with her head against his chest.

Unlike the throaty purr he could make as a conscious choice, the deeper purr seemed to evolve only from truest relaxation that was out of his control.

His powerful hearts were just two of the many strong muscles that created the fortress of the Yautja body; each one in R'chnt's well developed anatomy finely tuned and toned and strengthened to perform the jobs needed of them instantly without fatigue or pain, thanks to a daily life of training.

Supporting those muscles was a framework of bones reinforced with the same lattice type structured marrow inside them, creating a rock solid support system that was extremely difficult to break, could withstand severe impact, and providing a firm support base that allowed the Yautja to quite literally suspend themselves by their talons.

The Yautja, K'Shai knew, could jump or fall, from tremendous heights downward, just as easily and resiliently as they could leap up those same distances.

She knew their finger and toe talons were not fingernails atop skin like a human's, but actual bony extensions of their formidable frame structure. They were bone extremities anchored to more bone, allowing the Yautja to be more than capable of supporting their entire three-hundred plus pound build from their fingertips as they scaled vertically up trees, buildings, or any other surface they could puncture for grip with their talons.

Their entire body was thicker and stronger than a human's, right down to the bones.

The Yautja skull was a unique thing, even in comparison to the rest of their powerful bodies. She had learned that the Yautja never stop growing throughout their lives, which accounted for why elder Yautja like R'chnt were taller and of bigger build, with longer tusks atop their outer four mandibles.

The skulls of the Yautja, slightly varying in shapes, which K'Shai assumed depended upon different origins, were crowned in ridges along the back and sides of their heads. Some Yautja had one row of curving ridges, like R'chnt.

Others she had noticed had two rows and some were pointy while other ridges were rounded. The living tresses that grew like hair extended out from foramen right through the thick bony plates that comprised the back of the skull.

Females, she had noticed, had additional lines of ridges, closer to the center of their skulls along the top of their head.

Elders like R'chnt and Neh'rti and the many others K'Shai had seen and met, grew bony horns in multiple rows along their skulls, which caused their skin to wrinkle more than a younger Yautja's already was.

The tusks, too, that capped their mandibled mouth, would never stop growing and K'Shai had picked up, during many conversations that the length and look of a Yautja's tusks seemed to directly relate to some sort of sex appeal.

In between all that powerful framework, was an internal anatomy K'Shai doubted she would ever fully understand. The Yautja were humanoid in shape – two arms, two legs, two eyes, but there was very little else in common with a human. Their blood was fluorescent green, although K'Shai did not know why.

Their eyes were shades of orange, gold, greens, and white, they viewed their world in a thermal array of heat signatures that could allow them to see through solid objects to detect temperature differences, and allowed them to know the exactly bodily conditions of their prey.

They could taste smells as well as detect them with powerful olfactory senses and scent was as primary of a communication method, if not more so in some ways, than even spoken language. They had stronger senses, finely tuned to hunting and killing. They chose to take their natural abilities at the top of the food chain and put them to the test against prey that could challenge them.

They relied on their keen senses and strong bodies to support them through life or death struggles they willingly endured to prove they were the best and most worthy. None of it would have worked without the internal organs that fueled their bodies efficiently and powerfully. They had organs humans lacked entirely and they also lacked some organs humans needed to thrive.

L'ruch had mentioned at least two organs that she was not familiar with, but she certainly saw plenty of intestines as the trio of healers removed them from R'chnt's body, cleaned them, removed injured sections too far damaged to heal, sealed them together again and put them back where they belonged.

She listened quietly to the deep rumbling voices clicking and trilling of the Yautja spoken language, while she tried to see if R'chnt was still breathing.

Yautja had a five-lobed lung, capable of pulling in and filtering breathable air more than ten times the amount a human could inhale. They were able to breathe alien atmospheres thanks to a filtration process in the first lung, but they also relied on atmospheric controls in their biohelmets and a reserve air supply when necessary.

Their _awu'asa_ ensured they were prepared and supported to handle hunting in any environment. They were also capable of holding their breath and swimming underwater for extended periods of time.

Now, as she listened to R'chnt's ragged, weak breaths, she worried about those lungs, barely doing their job, only just so much to keep him alive.

He was fighting. At least, she hoped he was.

L'ruch continued on, siphoning out blood that was freely pooling in R'chnt's abdomen, causing it to swell. As he laid there, he seemed to be turning new shades of colors, his skin darkening with clotted blood and developing bruises in some areas while other areas swelled and turned ghastly white as they stretched unnaturally.

"He had lost much blood. He has a torn _…_ no… nearly gone _…. ataka_. I will remove the damaged portion." L'ruch commented, mostly to himself, humming deeply in short bursts as he worked; an eerie sound given the circumstances, that almost made it seem like he was experiencing pleasure taking apart R'chnt and putting him back together again.

She assumed maybe, in a way, he was. He was a healer and he was faced with one of the most challenging cases he had likely every experienced.

L'ruch was engaged in a different kind of battle, using his medical training and technology like a weapon to fight the damage done to R'chnt and heal him. She supposed he was enjoying the opportunity, and based on the comments she overheard, and W'rsa's own statement multiple times that this was not the Yautja way, K'Shai slowly realized that it was likely very few had ever had the opportunity to perform this kind of work.

L'ruch seemed to know what he was doing, though. He worked smoothly, quickly, but not rushed. He was focused and spoke clearly to his aides who jumped into action as they were directed, and he hummed from time to time as he settled onto a particular task. K'Shai listened, trying to decipher the words she did not know.

" _De-tau'nankha_ _ki'cte-etoun_." He nodded to an assistant, who silently retrieved a device from a nearby counter and applied it to R'chnt's chest.

The little tubule looking thing seemed to K'Shai to look something like a metal syringe without a needle on it. When a button was pressed on the side of it, she could hear a tiny little whirring sound from the device and it appeared to stick to R'chnt, pointing straight up.

If it had pierced his body, she could not tell but in a moment, L'ruch announced words she barely understood, but thought he had said something about breathing again.

She paused, surveying R'chnt and watching the little device's strobing lights dance in lines along its shaft, trying to work out the words she was hearing. R'chnt was already breathing, and nothing had changed with it.

Suddenly, her fingertips, locked around his forearm, became aware of a stronger pulse in the crease of his elbow and she realized it was his second heart that had begun pumping again, however weakly, but it was there. L'ruch left the device attached to R'chnt as he continued on.

The three Yautja repaired the wounds, sealed R'chnt's body closed, and left him to rest after cleaning the blood off his sides and leg and eventually removed the device from his chest, leaving only a small panel over his right arm that appeared to be relaying readings to the monitors.

L'ruch observed K'Shai, who had barely looked up the entire time, had not acknowledged any of the Yautja and had not said a word. Her skin was pale, her look was dark and sullen, her long hair dangled in tattered strands soaked with R'chnt's own blood. She still had his blood dried on her garments and hands, splattered on her face and she was trembling.

Her eyes remained shifted to R'chnt, but she did not appear to be truly looking at him, more like past him, _through_ him; her gaze not really focused. Her scent was rancid, both from the stench of her alien world and lack of cleanliness and a mixture of _h'dui'se_ that he assumed represented stress and sickness and of course, pregnancy; he could see the offspring in her womb as he surveyed her.

"He is _dhi'ki-de._ Do you understand?" L'ruch said to K'Shai in alarmingly well spoken English, proper questioning inflictions and all.

She finally broke her gaze away from the now sealed wounds and looked at the elder towering over her from the other side of the table across R'chnt's body.

L'ruch's thin body was shaded in heavy grays, his pale pasty colored abdomen barely offering any contrast to the slightly darker colors that lined his sides and legs.

He was not muscular, though he was very tall, taller perhaps than R'chnt. His long tusks looked to almost gleam, shined to a heavy polish and the ridges and horns that protruded from his head in thick rows between wrinkles that ran horizontally across his scalp, gave the impression to K'Shai that he was much older than R'chnt.

His body, she noticed, lacked adornments of any kind save for tattoos that appeared to be etched right into his skin along both shoulders and across his chest and back, like a midriff shirt. She had noticed a few other Yautja sporting tattoos of deep reds and blacks carved into their skin like brands.

L'ruch did not have armor, or bone necklaces, or scars, nor were there jewels and bone or metal beads in his blueish- white tresses. He wore little more than a metal and leather belt that supported a fringed-like loin cloth and sandals with tall shafts of criss-crossing leather, along with some bits of leather that wrapped up his arms and covered his shoulders.

"I …" she started weakly, the first sound she had uttered in hours.

Neh'rti had come for them in the middle of the night, around two in the morning. K'Shai knew it was almost eleven, because she wore a watch on her wrist and though she recalled falling asleep sometime during the night, it was not a recuperative rest at all.

She was exhausted, dazed; full of anxiety and stress, sick to her stomach, locked in fear for R'chnt.

"No. What does that mean?" She whispered, realizing she had no idea what a _dhi'ki-de_ was. Was it a good thing, she wondered. Did it mean perhaps he was better? Worse?

L'ruch hummed deeply.

"How to say in your tongue…" he thought audibly then looked from her to R'chnt and back again.

"He is… in a long sleep. Deep. He may not awake."

K'Shai's heart sank. She felt even more weak and nauseous. Her body trembled again as she tried to absorb what she was being told.

"A coma. He's in a coma." She muttered quietly, eyes cast back to scanning R'chnt for any sign of movement, somehow imagining that none of this was really happening. She felt a burning need to wail and sob over him again.

It seemed so surreal. He was so strong, powerful, confident, brave, and bold. He was unstoppable.

He was an alien warrior who had seen, hunted, and lived through everything there was to live through. This could not really be happening. Surely he would move, wake up, touch her the way he did, tick up a mandible in a comforting Yautja grin, stroke her face, and hold her in his warm arms again.

His body was always warm; much warmer than a human's. It was soothing to tuck in next to, especially in the cold fall nights in a heatless apartment after he heated up with pleasure inside her. Listening to his hearts beat, listening to his deep breathing, both so consistent and strong, were as comforting as a metronome keeping pace with unbreakable certainty.

Now, he was cold to the touch; far colder than he should be and so still is made her skin prickle in alarm. She was used to his ability to hold so motionless it was like he was made out of stone, but as he laid before her now he was not just motionless, he was lifeless.

His breaths were shallow, weak, and as she listened through his chest, she could barely hear his hearts.

She stroked his head, leaned in to kiss him and nuzzled her head against his, oblivious to the life readings that L'ruch noticed on the monitors on the wall above R'chnt suddenly surge with her contact. He hummed ponderingly and brought her a stool to sit upon.

"Stay with him." He said briskly. "Perhaps… he knows you are near."

She looked at L'ruch with a wide stare, hoping he was right.

"What is an _ataka_?"

L'ruch had started to walk away as K'Shai finally pulled together enough focus to recall the words she heard during the surgery and did not understand. He turned back to her and eyed her carefully.

"You speak Yautja?" He questioned, sounding a little impressed.

"Sei-i. _N'tik_." She confirmed that she spoke a little.

L'ruch hummed again as he considered her.

"He had been teaching you much. He must truly value you. How unusual. How very unusual."

K'Shai tightened her jaw and sighed deeply, trying hard to restrain tears as a sudden flashback of the last seven months filled her mind. She unconsciously stroked her abdomen as though she could somehow hold the fetus within her and reassure it, as if it knew what was happening on the outside.

"The _ataka_ … how do I say in your words…," L'ruch hummed again as he thought about it. "It is an organ that heals the body."

K'Shai remained silent and eyed L'ruch, trying to piece together the type of organ it was exactly as he continued on, clearly noting that she was working it out in her mind.

"It creates cells for the body to rebuild. His was badly damaged, most of it is removed."

Eyeing L'ruch worriedly, K'Shai questioned what that meant for R'chnt long term.

"If he lives through this at all, K'Shai," he informed her factually, "which he may not, he will likely be slow to heal from injury. He may not live as long as he could otherwise."

K'Shai glanced back to R'chnt, studying him carefully, pressing her lips together nervously.

"I have never seen a hunter this badly injured survive. Certainly never had one come back to me for help. This is unheard of."

L'ruch informed her, after dismissing his two assistants as if this conversation should be held in private.

"But… I suspect that everything involving R'chnt and his K'Shai going forward will be unheard of."

She shot him a wary look, considering his words, but saying nothing.

"Most unusual," L'ruch said as he turned again, humming as he left her to keep R'chnt company.

She sat with him. She clenched her hands around his. She wiped tears from her eyes. She stroked his body. She stood. She paced. She sat again. She picked at some food that L'ruch had made sure she was delivered. She waited. She listened to nothingness.

Unlike a human hospital, there were not even beeping monitors to make any ambient sound. L'ruch had even stopped his humming as he worked quietly over the computer in the other room. There was complete stillness, not a sound, not even an echoing voice from the corridor.

K'Shai had decided she would have preferred some kind of activity; L'ruch working on R'chnt, telling her more about his condition, even Neh'rti checking on them in her glaring way would have been an appreciated distraction from the still silence and the waiting.

She tried not to think about the fact that the Yautja had done their bit for R'chnt, beyond what they were willing to do, and were now merely waiting to see if he lived or died.

She tried not to focus too much on the foreboding thoughts she had that somehow she had defied not only the Yautja, but the very gods R'chnt believed in so strongly, just to satisfy her very alien, her _human_ , need to have him with her. She forced those thoughts from her mind, and sat quietly, waiting more, watching R'chnt's chest barely rise and fall, making almost no sound with each weak breath.

She took a long shower when L'ruch directed her to one of the other adjacent rooms; a bathroom as it was, and offered her fresh garments to don.

She had already been introduced to the awkward things that served as a toilet during her first visit to the Clan ship, in addition to the first glimpses at the way they lived and how very different it was from what she knew. R'chnt had been teaching her about life as a Yautja, but not about life _with_ the Yautja.

Yautja, as she was slowly beginning to understand, did everything in communal environments. She once had been taken through the Clan ship where she passed _kehrite_ training rooms, where groups of Yautja gathered to train under the supervision of their Leaders, or sparred in friendly combats that still resulted in injuries and bruises.

She learned that most other problems such as challenges of leadership, changes in status, even taking a mate as R'chnt explained it to her, were sorted out in public displays, sometimes to the death of one opponent depending on the severity of the matter.

She passed dining halls, like cantinas with huge tables that looked quite a bit like picnic benches, with large buffets of food and vats of drink available to refuel hunters.

The Clan ship itself, despite its vast size, was fairly empty and during her first visit to it, K'Shai was a little surprised at how few hunters there actually were aboard it; then she realized of course, it was because they were all down on Earth.

Most of the Yautja she had seen on the ship were either hunters on resupply errands or workers, along with dozens of females that she was beginning to realize were in charge of coordinating hunting parties; directing the battle.

Neh'rti had brought her into the sections of the clan ship that were restricted to access by females and juveniles only. It was an area of the ship they called the _mei'sa_ , which as K'Shai understood it was a type of female-only community child-rearing area.

While most of the corridors in the clan ship were fairly vacant, and the large rooms which could easily cram dozens of hunters into were occupied by handfuls at most, the _mei'sa_ was busier, bustling.

There were dozens of females of all ages in circular rooms off the main corridors, nursing young of their own, or supervising toddlers that played. K'Shai was amazed by what she saw as she followed behind Neh'rti, and clearly, so were the Yautja.

Each turned to look at the other in wonder, eyeing up the alien before them with curiosity. One young child, barely three years old by human standards, darted towards her hissing threateningly; his mother gathered him up with a growl. The little Yautja was actually _adorable_ , K'Shai had thought and she tried her best to keep her amused giggle to herself for fear of offending anyone.

It was almost a little hard to believe that something so big and powerful and deadly as the Yautja adults she had come to know, ever even were children, but here they were, all around her in comfortable communal quarters.

Many of the rooms, she noticed, had at least two beds, sometimes more. The draping coverings over the beds, the ornately decorated walls- bones and symbols covering the otherwise drab metal hull of the ship, the soothing amber glow that backlit every wall she passed and cast a shadowy haze through the corridors, all made the mei'sa all comfortable place for females and young, though she was sweating heavily just walking through the hallways.

The mei'sa, the feel of the ship, the atmosphere around her, even some of the garments the females wore, flowing satiny garments that were sheer and leathery in various places, and draped down around them from collars, with no undergarments of any kind, to allow their nursing offspring easy access, all had an oddly familiar sense to K'Shai, like something she saw in a movie once, perhaps.

She could not quite place it. Maybe ancient Egyptian, or Roman, or Mayan, or all of them combined.

The babies she saw cradled in the arms of their bare-breasted mothers as they nursed were like little green and yellow and brown and black mottled and speckled and striped miniature versions of the adults, only they lacked teeth and their cheeks and mouth parts, from what she saw of a few that were sleeping comfortably as they basked in the warmth of their mothers, were less developed and more fleshy, built for suckling.

The toddlers were wobbly looking and disproportionate, but they were playful, active, and vocal, fighting and clamoring over one another in fumbling ways that made them look a bit like puppies toppling into each other.

Though they had no tusks on their more developed mandibles, their inner mouths did house tiny little bright white baby teeth protruding from their bubble-gum pink gums.

The one that ran over to K'Shai, a male as displayed by his lack of garments, had tinny little tresses growing from his tiny ridged crown. They looked like little buds, bouncing along as he bounded towards her trying to intimidate her with his stature.

Neh'rti had not seemed impressed and hissed at the mother who withdrew with her child. K'Shai pressed her lips together, remembering R'chnt's initial uncertainty over what a human smile was intended to convey.

She did her best not to expose her teeth and curl the corners of her lips to send a confusing signal to the females she passed.

Neh'rti brought K'Shai and the entourage that followed them to a halt in one of the round rooms, larger, more ornate and comfortable than any of the others, but lacking beds of any kind.

It had large leather chairs, big enough to fit two humans side by side in and when K'Shai slipped into the seat of one, she felt she could easily just stretch out in it and sleep. The room was warm, _hot_ , and the orange glow from the backlit walls, she realized, was emitting heat.

Neh'rti had barraged K'Shai with questions, but they were not the questions K'Shai had been expecting; not that she knew what to really expect or what was really going on.

She figured it was reasonable that Neh'rti, the Clan Leader, the female who determined the direction of all major decisions that affected the Clan, wanted to meet her and sum her up. She had let her mind wander as she walked down the corridors; halfway expecting Neh'rti to turn and strike at her with a weapon just to see what she might do; to test her Yautja mettle in some way.

She expected the questions to revolve around her fighting skills or her intentions within the Clan. Suddenly, K'Shai had begun to imagine Neh'rti conducting something like a job interview and asking her where she saw herself in five years. K'Shai's nerves flared suddenly as she imagined that, but when she crawled in the massive chair, Neh'rti's questions had nothing to do with any of that.

"R'chnt has spoken," Neh'rti had started out firmly, "of you as if you are Yautja. Are you prepared to live amongst us?"

"Yes." She answered simply, smoothly.

"You have proven your ability to survive to him, K'Shai. But you will have to do much more than that to be a part of this clan. Do you understand?"

"Yes." K'Shai answered again, sure that whatever challenges lie ahead, R'chnt would help guide her through.

"If you fail… and as an _alien_ I believe you will… you will bring R'chnt's dishonor, shame. You will bring his death. You accept this consequence?"

"Yes." K'Shai repeated, feeling her nerves fray and her agitation rise.

Neh'rti clearly caught onto the change, and continued to press K'Shai, questioning her for what seemed like hours, which K'Shai confirmed with a quick check of her watch eventually that it had actually been _six_ hours.

With each statement there was a thinly veiled insult. With each question there was some kind of threat to her well-being or R'chnt's honor or status within the clan. Neh'rti threatened death, banishment, stripping R'chnt's entire heritage of its honor and nobility.

She threatened and tested K'Shai, sometimes rattling off about something entirely differently, barraging her with questions about her experiences on Earth, then throwing in another question about her understanding of the risks to R'chnt's standing that she was single handedly accepting the fate of.

K'Shai felt her temper flaring more times than it probably should have. She did not like Neh'rti, and she knew beyond a doubt the feeling was mutual. R'chnt had told her that nothing she would do would bring such dishonor to him, so she trusted his certainty on the matter, but Neh'rti had successfully reduced K'Shai within about thirty seconds to a helpless little child that would never be worthy to walk amongst her people.

She projected that certainty throughout the conversation and K'Shai tried to absorb what she was being told, trying to figure out how she could prove herself, and coming up blank.

She kept herself in check, quelling her frustration, trying to hide her flaring anger. She resorted, wisely, to keeping to simple and concise answers instead, and doing her best to control to her facial gestures, knowing full well that Neh'rti could easily misinterpret them, or worse- interpret them correctly.

Neh'rti was a towering and imposing female, clad in leathery armor and some dlex awu'asa, and K'Shai noticed at least two machete-length weapons hanging from her belt.

It was intimidating being questioned, and threatened, by a nearly nine foot tall elder Yautja female, and it frayed at K'Shai's nerves, making her almost question if R'chnt really knew the risks and consequences of the choices he was making, that she was willing to follow.

She stuck to her answers, not displaying any doubt to Neh'rti, at least, she hoped she wasn't, but she made a mental note to talk to R'chnt about all of this.

Neh'rti also had brought up K'Shai's ability to reproduce and had asked for details about human reproduction, only briefly offering some insight into the differences in Yautja reproduction, but making it clear that she was more than a little surprised that R'chnt had even mated with her at all.

K'Shai flared for a moment, trying quickly to settle her agitation level, not sure if the way Neh'rti worded it was an insult or a question, because she had something about breeding marks that K'Shai did not understand.

Eventually, the interrogation ended, leaving K'Shai feeling a little numb, trying to process what had just transpired.

She answered every question, tried her best to explain reasonable answers to every statement Neh'rti requested, and hoped that she came across as informative and certain of her choices, not refuting and argumentative or doubtful and scared, but she was not sure at all what she had ultimately ended up conveying.

Every chance Neh'rti had she spoke to K'Shai in such a diminutive way it made her feel like a two year old being scolded by a tough old baby sitter. It got under her nerves, but she tried to let it slide, figuring that when Neh'rti dismissed herself and told K'Shai to rejoin R'chnt for a ceremony, she had passed whatever test it was that she was being put through.

On the way back out of the _mei'sa_ , K'Shai was guided by another female, who's name she did not know, towards a closed door that led to the main corridor of the _jag'd'atoll_ , but K'Shai stopped and spoke up, distracting her guide.

"Is that a bathroom? I really have to pee!"

K'Shai did not know how to say the words in Yautjan, and it was clear the female leading her had no idea what she had just said, but K'Shai pointed curiously towards the open door next to her, and the female directed her in.

It was an uncomfortable experience, sharing an open floorplan community bathroom to eliminate her bowels and bladder, but clearly, this was the Yautja way, too. Everything seemed to be communal and without modesty.

K'Shai crouched over a thinly dished portion of the floor, with a hole that led to some unseen bowels of the vessel and despite feeling awkward and uncomfortable tending to her needs with three other females doing the same at the moment and two young toddlers all staring at her curiously, it still felt good to finally release what she had been holding for _hours_.

As she slid into the shower of the _jurite,_ she was silently grateful for a private place to tend to such matters and she raised her chin to towards the gushing flow of water high above her head and shut her eyes as she leaned against the wall and moaned soothingly.

The hot water flowed down her body, whisking away caked on dried blood and dirt and sweat and easing her tired muscles. She lathered a heavy layer of soap that poured out of a bottle from a shelf she barely reached on the wall and she let the caramel-like scent of it linger.

She dried her body with a cloth the size of a beach towel that had a texture and feel to it like a chamois before returning to R'chnt's side feeling a bit better, clean and comfortable in the garments L'ruch had provided her to wear, which fit her like a robe, clearly not sized for her.

"Let me look at you, K'Shai." He said and reached for her.

She immediately withdrew from his reach and L'ruch stopped.

"I want to make sure you are well." He said with a slightly submissive bow and directed her with a sweeping motion of his arm to another table in the adjacent room.

She stood and allowed him to guide her without physical contact. The hospital area was a series of circular rooms all interconnected with wide doorways big enough to drive a van through, with high ceilings that allowed plenty of clearance for any Yautja.

K'Shai had guessed that Neh'rti was somewhere around nine feet tall; she towered over R'chnt and was of a bigger build, yet still possessed of feminine qualities to her frame. K'Shai had wondered if Neh'rti was the tallest a Yautja could get or if Neh'rti had to look up to someone else, though she could not imagine it.

Still, the tall ceilings in the Clan ship were clearly a necessity. The entire ship was huge, with wide spacious rooms. The Yautja were huge, took up a lot of space, and needed plenty of room to spread out and get away from one another.

L'ruch spoke excellent English and K'Shai inquired about it while he ran scans of her with handheld devices that looked a bit like remote controls and displayed the results of the scan in a three dimensional holographic projection from a computer panel that looked quite a bit similar to the integrated computer system in the hunters _awu'asa_ , which K'Shai knew could project scans of terrain and life forms.

Apparently, it could project highly detailed displays of her entire body, too.

"Did you learn English while hunting on Earth?"

L'ruch chortled, almost a dismissive laugh at the idea, like somehow hunting was distasteful to him.

"No. I studied your language. I have studied many languages. I do not hunt."

K'Shai eyed him in wide surprise.

"You don't? But you have a…"

L'ruch nodded and reached to the crest of his head, lightly touching his Blooding mark.

"You have much to learn, K'Shai. I don't know what R'chnt has taught you about our ways, but I imagine most of it had to do with tracking, killing, skinning and gutting prey. In that order."

K'Shai could not help but to giggle. It was true and the tone of L'ruch's voice was lightly mocking and most definitely etched with a sound of amused contempt.

"The hunters are the life's blood of the Clan," L'ruch continued and eyed R'chnt's still and silent body again.

"Elders like him provide the strength, the offspring, the spiritual guidance, and the power to the Clan to withstand enemies and honor the Gods. Hunters are highly respected, though few live to the age of elder.

Strong hunters make for strong Clans. No Clan can evolve or thrive without capable hunters. They are the backbone of any Clan. They are highly respected and deeply honored.

We are the _Kaunte Dar'een_ Clan, K'Shai. We are the strongest of all Clans, but not _all_ of us hear the call of the hunter after _chiva_. Some of us turn to sciences, technologies, textiles, art; wherever our Path leads. We _all_ support the hunters who support the Clan."

K'Shai processed L'ruch's words; it was something she simply never even thought of. Everyone she had met was a hunter, or at least bore the Blooding mark, so she assumed they were all hunters. She assumed, naturally, that they all hunted because it was what they were born to do and what drove the species.

As she thought more about it, she considered the meek looking Yautja who were clearly workers, coming and going, bringing food, cleaning, resupplying, taking orders from others. They were not the height of the hunters she had come to know, not even of the same build.

Some of the worker Yautja she saw were barely much taller than any average human male, with far less muscling.

"So, you pass your… _chiva_ … and then, you choose to become a doctor?" She asked, trying to clarify.

"Surviving chiva earns your place in the Clan, K'Shai. As you have done," L'ruch said as he gently extended a clawed finger towards the Blooding mark in her head.

"What you do with that place is yours to choose. Spiritual guidance from elders who honor the gods, like R'chnt, will help you to know if you hear the call of the hunter or not. Once you have your place in the Clan, you can learn from a master of the hunt or a master of medicine; that is up to you.

You can strike out on your own, as many young hunters do, to make a name for themselves alone. Few survive. R'chnt did that when he was young. He killed prey that none would dare take on alone and earned his place as a master to other Yautja."

L'ruch filled K'Shai in on a history of R'chnt that she did not know about him. It was not in his nature to speak of his own conquests, rather he let his scars and trophies speak for him, but when she did get him talking about his hunts, she was an enraptured with his tales as a child at Christmas time listening to her grandparents talk about Santa Claus.

He described hunts against prey that she had a hard time imagining on worlds she could only barely process even existed.

She thought about the giant serpent that adorned the wall in the council chamber aboard the Clan ship. He had killed the thing himself, alone, with a spear, to secure his place as Leader.

R'chnt, as L'ruch confirmed with almost a dreamy hint of admiration as a human might talk about an A-list actor they wished they could be like, had heard the call of the hunter and proven himself time and again.

He hinted, not terribly subtly, that the only reason for K'Shai's presence was because of R'chnt's status, and it been a lesser Yautja that enamored himself with her, it was highly likely both of them would have been killed.

L'ruch continued on.

"He has personally taken you on, Blooded you, performed the blood bond with you. He is protecting you so even if he does die, you will have your place here. You can learn from a master of art, weapon making, whatever function you can put to best use to support the hunters and the Clan. What will you do to earn your place, K'Shai?"

She stared blankly at L'ruch. She had assumed she would learn to hunt alongside R'chnt and hunt with him; the thought that she could even choose to do anything else had never even been a concept in her head. She glanced over her shoulder towards R'chnt and surveyed him carefully.

"I just want him to live."

"You have much to learn first, before you decide. But you should consider the fact that your future may not include R'chnt."

She eyed him with a glare, and clearly L'ruch caught on to her offense, as he shifted the conversation quickly.

"You have proven you are capable of carrying offspring. I am sure you will find your Path amongst the females training the cub."

K'Shai sat silently for a moment, watching L'ruch idly scan her.

"Why do the Yautja hunt?"

He stopped and stared at her, humming again as he contemplated his response.

"I mean to say, if you can choose to be other things, why would you choose to risk your life like this?" K'Shai clarified, eyeing R'chnt again.

The thought was just so overwhelming to her. She really just naively assumed that every Yautja that existed hunted _just because_ it was what they did. She never stopped to consider that there were Yautja who built, studied, and created; engineers and healers and artists.

It was hard for her to process that _not_ hunting was a choice. So what would make a Yautja choose to risk themselves and clearly savor in it, she wondered. It seemed to her, as she tried to process it all, that to be a hunter was obviously risky, but full of rewards.

Although she was not clearly sure what the rewards were exactly, it was obvious that L'ruch thought highly of R'chnt, glorified him even, and that R'chnt being a hunter that he was, one that made it to both Leader and elder, entitled him to privileges other Yautja did not earn. It was all a lot to take in and she quietly pondered it for a moment as L'ruch hummed before he responded.

"I think perhaps that question is best answered by a hunter." L'ruch evaded.

"Well, why did _you_ chose to become a healer?" K'Shai tried again.

He glanced at her, tipping a mandible into a half a smile, apparently amused that K'Shai was being so diplomatic.

"Hunting was not my Path." He said simply and left it at that.

L'ruch hummed again as he strode away, then fell quiet as he reviewed the scans.

After a short while of silence, K'Shai finally turned away from gazing at R'chnt's still and silent body in the other room and looked at L'ruch. She almost thought maybe for a moment he had forgotten about her.

"Everything OK?"

" _Sei-i_ ," he said. "I will get you food brought here. You should eat. But you and the offspring are doing well it seems, as far as I can tell of course."

"Has there ever been another hybrid child?" She asked worriedly.

L'ruch rumbled and hummed, a sound she was beginning to learn that he made absentmindedly when he stopped to think.

"Not to my knowledge. I cannot ever recall hearing of any hunter who has even mated with an alien. You are quite unique, K'Shai. This whole situation is most unusual."

After a meal, L'ruch had shown K'Shai her way around the _jurite_ well enough that she learned where anything she might need was located and K'Shai took a sponge, a bowl of hot water, and a dry towel and began methodically cleaning R'chnt as he had instructed.

She tended to him diligently, methodically, carefully cleaning him, spending hours peeling layers of dead skin from his fleshy tresses at the roots where they grew from his skull, working in oils as L'ruch instructed her, stroking him in silence with her palms, rubbing his body, massaging him, stimulating him in any way she could with heated rubs, physical contact, and quiet whispers.

L'ruch left her to it and as days passed, there was nothing to do but wait; wait to see if R'chnt would live or die, and so she sat and waited, endlessly watching over him, never leaving the _jurite_. L'ruch would come and go as hours within each day passed, there were others who were never introduced, never spoke, and barely even looked at her, that brought food and drink to her and cleaned and resupplied as needed.

Most of those Yautja looked thin, unmuscled, and scrawny, even ragged. Some of them looked to have scars that looked like claw marks, maybe even whip marks, she was not sure.

K'Shai watched them quietly as they bustled about, coming and going about their business carefully avoiding getting too close to R'chnt. Even in his stillness, the worker Yautja seemed to be fearful of him, or maybe they were afraid of her, she was not sure.

It was unusual to her to see meek and timid looking Yautja and she couldn't help but to watch them curiously. Realizing her own staring was making them even more uneasy, she tried to keep her eyes diverted.

K'Shai began to learn that thirty hours seemed to be the Yautjan equivalent of one day. Neh'rti appeared in the clinic with consistent rotation every thirty hours as K'Shai noted according to her watch.

She assumed that Neh'rti was checking in on them once a day, although whether it was the start, middle, or end of her day she could not be sure. Usually Neh'rti said nothing, or kept the conversation to a minimal and factual question and answer session with L'ruch about R'chnt's condition. She never addressed K'Shai directly the entire time, but K'Shai listened to the conversations quietly and knew her name was brought up.

"Has she left his side at all?" Neh'rti asked during another of her visits.

"No, Leader. She watches over him waiting for him to wake."

Neh'rti huffed audibly. K'Shai kept her eyes to R'chnt but listened quietly.

"Does she understand our words?" Neh'rti asked.

"I do not know how much Yautja she speaks, Leader." L'ruch answered honestly.

Neh'rti growled softly. "She should be in the mei'sa, preparing for the birth, and learning our ways. I do not understand this _attachment_ she has to him."

"It is her way. A human way" L'ruch answered simply.

"K'Shai must choose, then," Neh'rti said factually, as if the very concept of her attachment to R'chnt was offensive, "whether she wishes to be human or Yautja."

With that, she left the _jurite_ and K'Shai looked to L'ruch with a worried gaze.

It had been seven Yautja cycles of days and R'chnt still lay quiet and unconscious. It seemed Neh'rti's patience were wearing thin with the situation and K'Shai essentially living in the medical ward was not ideal.

Her mind frantically ran in circles, wondering what her life would come to if R'chnt died, or if he simply never woke up and laid in a coma forever.

She felt her body go numb again as she slumped into the stool next to the table he lay upon. She absent-mindedly stroked her belly and began to think about how she could even begin to adjust to Yautja life without him to guide her.

L'ruch was pleasant and accepting of her, curious about her from a medical stand point and K'Shai had obliged him with scan after scan, although she was a little less than pleased when he appeared in the bathroom with her while she was showering just to continue a previous conversation. She reminded herself again that Yautja had no sense of modesty.

He warily warned her that it was likely almost no Yautja would accept her as readily as R'chnt had, and she jokingly informed him that R'chnt didn't exactly accept her "readily", either. It was a slow process.

L'ruch agreed that it would take time for the Yautja to accept her, and that it all started with Neh'rti. K'Shai thought, naively, that Neh'rti allowing her to be blooded into the Clan was acceptance, and would have been enough to allow her to be welcomed amongst the Yautja. She had gotten the sense as the days passed, though, that this was not the case, and Neh'rti herself had said that K'Shai would need to do much more to prove herself despite the Blooding mark she bore on her forehead.

"You are alien, K'Shai. You have no right to be here." L'ruch told her factually. "Whatever R'chnt saw in you, you will need to make others see, and if he dies…," he paused as she glared at him again for the very notion. "… if he dies, you will have to do it without him to support you."

She felt her heart pounding at the notion and silently sat considering the next days, the next weeks, the gestation of the offspring in her. What would happen? The worry building in her made her start to feel sick to her stomach.

Then, suddenly, R'chnt shifted his arm and found her hand.


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

L'ruch withdrew from the room entirely, waiting at a safer distance as R'chnt stirred with a deep growl.

K'Shai stared wide eyed at R'chnt, a relieved smile on her face, glancing only for a moment to L'ruch. R'chnt slowly opened his eyes, never releasing his firm grip on K'Shai's hand. He looked at her and immediately sat up.

She instinctively reached to support him as he did so, but he tensed up, directing her without a word as she picked up his subtle cues that he did not want her support.

He woke up still thinking he was in the fog, looking for K'Shai. He felt her touch on his arm and reached for it, thinking how odd it was that he was not able to feel her before. Slowly, a rush of familiar scents flooded into him and as his brain gathered itself, he could hear the sound of K'Shai's heart; feel her pulse through her fingers into his arm.

He suddenly began to realize he was in a very familiar environment, but wasn't sure how he had gotten there.

The last thing he recalled, he was on Earth. Dancing images of smoke and weapons fire and the gigantic sleek black hide of a _kainde amedha_ queen cluttered his mind as he tried to sort them out along with the smells and sensations around him.

He was comfortably warm, but incredibly sore, tired, and weak. His head felt light, but as he opened his eyes and focused, the familiar sights of the Clan ship _jurite_ came into view. He could sense the subtly nervous _h'dui'se_ of L'ruch and the appealing scents of K'Shai, cleaned and dressed in Yautja garments, emanating her pregnancy through her pores.

He sat up on the table, bracing himself rigid, trying to force the pain away as K'Shai leaned into him to offer assistance. She was keen to his postures and quickly realized he intended to remain unassisted as he still tried to work out what was going on, how he ended up on the Clan ship, and why he was in so much pain.

"R'chnt!" K'Shai said in a whisper, leaning into him, not to support, but to press her head against his, embracing him powerfully and kissing him deeply.

"I can't believe it. I'm so glad you're awake."

"What… happened?" He asked slowly, still trying to fill in the missing details in his mind.

K'Shai glanced to L'ruch, who hadn't moved and remained lingering in the doorway far from the table. He was watching keenly, but made no attempt to approach. She looked back to R'chnt.

"How much do you remember? She asked him.

"I remember a queen. I remember killing her. How did I get here?" At that, R'chnt looked down at his own side and the sealed injuries. He figured out the source of the pain, but did not recall totally the injury that K'Shai began to describe.

He listened to her explain, watching her gesturing with her hands, mimicking actions and reinforcing the emphasis she was trying to make. He watched her body temperature rise as she told the tale, expressed her worry, detailed the trauma he endured, explained how many days he had been unconscious and emphasized again her worry and upset over it all.

He pulled his upper tusks apart into a gracious smile, sitting motionless at the edge of the table until she was done with her furious soliloquy.

"You're Yautjan is much improved." He said simply.

K'Shai stilled and stared at him, allowing her eyes to glaze blankly and her jaw to hang open slightly.

"That... that's all you have to say? You almost died. You've been in a coma for more than a week, and all you have to say is that my ability to speak Yautjan has gotten better?"

K'Shai gaped at him. R'chnt pulled his upper tusks apart a bit further, widening his smile as he extended a hand to her cheek and caressed her. He dropped his eyes to the growing fetus within her and then turned to L'ruch who had been keeping a respectful distance.

"Is she and the offspring healthy?"

L'ruch stepped forward with a deep bow and hummed briefly as he approached the table, stopping well out of arm's reach.

"Yes, Leader, they are both well. The offspring is growing steadily; faster than typical for a Yautja, but infant and mother are both healthy."

He turned to K'Shai without a further word to the elder healer and looked her over again "Come, we will get you garments and I will show you to my ship. Have you eaten?" He began.

K'Shai blinked and finally shoved away her blank gaze, pulling herself together enough to respond. He was about to say something else, but K'Shai cut him off.

"R'chnt, I'm fine… I…you…are you…" she stammered, not really knowing what to say. He seemed unconcerned – almost oblivious – to the events that had transpired.

He watched her curiously, trying to figure out why she was so stressed and anxious over his injury. He glanced at the wounds that were coated lightly with a healing agent. He was certain the injury would leave a tell-tale scar that he would be proud of, certainly the most severe injury he had ever had.

He was alive; the elder healer had performed his job well especially considering that it was rare for any hunter to be treated for such severe injuries.

K'Shai seemed to somehow act as though there was more to it than that, although he could not really understand why as much as he tried. She seemed _more_ discontent by his concern for her, or his indifference to the injuries which clearly had her rattled.

That confused him almost as much as the actions she had described taking to save his life. Having known her the way he did, he was not terribly surprised by that tendency of her kind, though he found it hard to understand.

He had observed humans long enough to know that they had such a profound value for life that they would fight against death in any way they could. It was this quality that made them such incredibly formidable opponents for the hunt, and he knew it was also this behavior that drove them to do almost anything to save or help another.

He knew she and the other humans did what they did, not for trying to embarrass him by keeping him from meeting the gods with glory, but out of their natural drive to cling to life.

It was a strange notion for R'chnt, who like any other Yautja learned at an early age that anyone too weak to survive on their own would be left to perish. It seemed to him that humans spent too much effort fighting the will of their gods; fighting the natural way things should be.

It was no wonder, he thought, why the species was so chaotic and their beliefs were so varied. K'Shai and her species did not share many of the same views as the Yautja and it seemed to him that there was a time in the not too distant past he would have thought such qualities were indicative of weakness.

Humans, with their soft skin, delicate muscles, and easily damaged internal structures, were well known to be weaker physically, though highly intelligent and capable of being cunning and brutal opponents.

Many Yautja thought of most of the species to be generally weak and fearful, and he supposed that if Yautja were so easily injured and killed they may have evolved differently, too. As it was, Yautja were strong, and not easily killed, nor were they fearful of death the way humans were.

It was obvious to him that K'Shai was clearly disturbed by how close to death he had come and instead of seeing it as an honor to die well in battle, she somehow saw it as something to be fearful of. It made no sense to him and as he processed her words and tried to understand her logic, he found he could not.

To be injured the way he was, was weakness, and only weakness and it put him in a difficult position. He knew others would no doubt think he was probably too weak to continue on in his position as Leader.

He considered for a moment that K'Shai had absolutely no idea that her efforts to save his life had put him in a questionable position in the eyes of his own race. He knew he would have to ensure his position was still solid and he only briefly considered how difficult that was going to be.

R'chnt watched K'Shai expressing her concerns, showing no hint that she viewed him as anything less than capable. Quite the opposite, he realized as she exasperated herself over him, he realized she saw his ability to survive the wounds he did as an incredible display of strength.

How it was possible that she could see that as strength confused him greatly.

He had always been taught, and had always taught in return, that extending yourself on behalf on another, weaker individual was foolish. Mercy and compassion were not natural, and usually resulted in the death of both parties.

Hunters died of their injuries as a matter of course. It was simply not the Yautja way to extend such efforts, especially not for a hunter. It was a matter of pride.

If any lesser Yautja was so severely injured, they could seek all the medical care they wanted, and it would be ignored by the hunters who did not bother to concern themselves with the comings and goings of the non-hunters. It was a hunter's will and right to live and die as the gods saw fit, but he considered K'Shai's position on the matter.

He felt a little numb at the idea that he was only alive because of that very same trait he dismissed so easily as fool hardy. K'Shai stood before him strong and unwavering in her need for him.

She still had a grip on his hand, never letting go except to embrace him, share her warmth and her tender touch that conveyed her whirlwind of emotions through her shaky body to him. He studied her silently trying to understand the confusing, even exhausting character trait of her species as he tried to figure out why she still seemed so agitated.

K'Shai, he decided, spent entirely too much time worrying about things that had happened in the past. She suffered from that problem endlessly, it seemed, thinking on the events of the past, envisioning their path differently, or allowing the anxiety from one event to linger on into the future. That was also not the Yautja way.

It was obvious as she stood before him that she was fearful of the idea of a life without him; that she needed him, and as he considered recent events he let the knowledge that he did not wish for such an outcome sink into him. Of course, it was a possibility, he knew. He had assumed that it was understood by K'Shai that he could die and would not return to her.

He was not accustomed to the idea of needing the company of a female so much, and female Yautja certainly never attached themselves to a male in such a way for that very reason.

A hunter's life span was an uncertain thing; most never made it to the age of elder. There was something different about K'Shai and her _need_ for him. She was unusual, unique, and as he surveyed her, watching her respond to him in her powerful way, he realized there was a connection between them that he probably would never fully understand.

Had he never known her, he would have preferred that his injuries have been left unattended and the will of the gods take his Path the way they selected. It would have been an honorable death, fighting a ferocious battle with a viscous prey exactly as a hunter of his experience and skill would have chosen if the great Black Warrior Cetanu called to collect him.

Things were different now, though, and try as he might, he could not recall hearing the howling shriek of Cetanu.

There was no vision in his mind of the warrior's axe, nor of his piercing eyes which were said to burn right through to the soul of a fallen warrior, immediately judging him of worthy or not to be in his great presence.

R'chnt had heard no call of the great God of the hunters. The only thing he could recall hearing at all was K'Shai. He thought about it for a moment, trying to collect his mind, thinking to the absence of time that she told him he was _dhi'ki-de._

He could only recall somehow knowing she was there, none else.

Suddenly, the door to the _jurite_ opened and Neh'rti entered. She stopped, gauging the room in surprise just as R'chnt shifted off the table and to his feet. She seemed perhaps more than a little impressed, that he was standing.

"Leader," she greeted R'chnt with respect and a subtle nod. "I see the gods have allowed you to live for another hunt."

R'chnt nodded deeply, acknowledging Neh'rti's words and presence respectfully. K'Shai followed suit.

"Yes, Leader," R'chnt said from his bow. "I did not hear the call of the gods."

Neh'rti turned her attention to K'Shai for the first time since she returned to the Clan ship and finally addressed her.

"The gods have allowed him to live. Your presence at his side is not necessary, K'Shai. You are to take to the mei'sa. You have much learning to do. You will learn of our ways and prepare for the birth of the offspring within you."

K'Shai's eyes widened and she braced up her back, tightened her jaw.

"What…" K'Shai started to rebut in a whisper.

Neh'rti, she knew, was growing ever impatient with the _unusual_ need of hers to remain by R'chnt. K'Shai was quickly growing annoyed at the description of everything about her being termed unusual.

What drove her behaviour was not unusual for a human, and she found it very difficult to accept that it was so drastically different from the Yautja way. She could not imagine anyone being so unfeeling.

R'chnt seemed poised somewhere in the middle between the differencing of opinions and behaviors in the room. L'ruch backed away upon Neh'rti's appearance.

"Leader, K'Shai still has much to learn," R'chnt intervened, stopping K'Shai in her thoughts, before she likely said something to trigger a fight. "…and she will learn from the females, but for now, until I return to the hunt, I will continue her training."

Neh'rti flared her tusks, but quietly considered R'chnt's words, displaying her frustration as her temper rose, but she dismissed herself, grumbling something that K'Shai only barely heard about how unusual the situation was.

"Come." R'chnt directed her out of the jurite.

He stepped slowly, lightly, keeping pace with K'Shai as he shifted his strong shoulders back and his normal rigid and proud posture returned.

Clad in just a loin cloth, R'chnt looked powerful and dignified as he walked along with K'Shai, glaring down anyone who passed them in the corridor until they bowed their head respectfully. He spoke only to K'Shai, never once acknowledging any of the other Yautja they passed.

K'Shai watched R'chnt carefully as they walked. At first, she struggled in her head to figure out how it was that he could just stand and step off so casually despite his injuries. Any human would have been incredibly lucky to have survived what he did, and even though he was Yautja, she knew beyond a doubt that he was lucky too.

Surely, she thought quietly as she studied him moving slowly through the corridors, he was in pain or suffering side effects of the trauma he endured. She watched him quizzically, only glancing around to other Yautja they passed for a moment, noting how they reacted to him and how he acted in return.

Each one of them he seemed to greet somewhat differently. Some were met with light gazes from R'chnt before they lowered their heads into a simple nod. Others drew a deep growl from R'chnt and withdrew so forcefully they flattened against the walls as they passed, clearing a wide berth around both R'chnt and K'Shai.

He guided her through a maze of corridors, down a lift several levels, and through more corridors before coming to a halt at the open doorway of what could only be described as a leather shop. The smells that hit K'Shai's nose were strong and overpowering, but familiar.

Five Yautja were at work within the massive oval space and as K'Shai glanced around, she couldn't help but notice how it seemed as though every room she had been in on the ship was an oval.

One of the workers approached R'chnt with a deep bow, and kept his eyes carefully on his own toes, never looking at K'Shai. His tusks were folded so tightly against the frame of his mouth he looked a little like he was trying to swallow them and it was not until R'chnt spoke, that he even looked up.

Doing as directed, the Yautja with a deeply rich black hide that was mottled with hints of red, gathered garment material and approached K'Shai, pausing reluctantly before he did. Doing as R'chnt indicated, K'Shai allowed the worker to size her up and after almost no time at all, garments were produced for her that fit her properly.

She stripped out of her bath-robe like leather dress she had been wearing, but not before moving off to an out of the way corner and using R'chnt as a body shield to do so. He assisted her in tying the garments properly, getting the fit against her skin just right and snug.

The materials looked like leather and felt like satin, fitting her so supportively she wondered if they were made out of some kind of elastic too. She donned the garments, essentially a fringed leather bikini, and a pair of sandals with leather lacing that criss-crossed to her knees, and felt much more comfortable standing in R'chnt's shadow, with properly fitted clothing and feet finally separated from the hot metal plating of the floor.

She felt cooler, or she had gotten used to the heat, she wasn't sure. K'Shai glanced around again at the leather shop and left with R'chnt and made a comment about the heat, to which R'chnt response was that he found it entirely too cold on her world. K'Shai pressed her lips together into a thin smile.

To a human, a lovely temperate climate of seventy degrees was pretty much perfect weather. To a Yautja, that was like walking around mostly nude in winter.

She followed alongside R'chnt, who took her through another maze of corridors that she thought started to look a bit familiar and they rounded a corner and appeared in the doorway to a cantina, one that she knew she had been to before.

At least, for having limited time roaming the corridors on the ship, she was starting to feel a bit more familiar with the place, she thought.

The cantina was mostly empty. Two nearly clothless Yautja were removing an empty cart of food and two more were organizing foods – meats and fruits – along a buffet style serving area. Large drink vats sat at either end of the tall food bar and off to one end, two more vats with some kind of delicious smelling stew brewing suddenly got her stomach churning as she realized she was starving.

There were seven other Yautja in the giant area, each one stopping in the middle of drinking, eating, or talking to look up, then suddenly back down.

K'Shai noticed that a few of the Yautja kept their heads down, but eyes up, surveying the two of them, while R'chnt broadcast a growl, telling them he knew what they were doing.

He guided K'Shai around the room, each getting a tray of food and settling into a table right near the center of the place. K'Shai sat next to R'chnt, close, and he welcomed it, his body language opening up to allow her to get as close as she wanted. He ate his food and rested one large arm around K'Shai's body while she ate.

They talked over their meals, R'chnt walking her through each of the things she was eating, helping her learn names and how to unshell fruits and nuts, and giving a highly detailed account of exactly how the fillets of meat she was eating were hunted and carved from what type of beast.

As they talked, she watched the Yautja come and go, each one glancing to her only so much as they felt they could get away with before escaping R'chnt's glare.

He seemed to allow each one who entered the room or passed the table take a good look at both of them. Sometimes he firmed up his grip around her hip, pulling her a little tighter into his uninjured side as he glared at a passerby who stared too much or too directly.

K'Shai on the other hand couldn't help but to eyeball every Yautja who walked by; absorbing them from head to toe, looking at all their various differences.

Many of them had injuries and most were without at least full armor. While some of the Yautja had parts of their _awu'asa_ on, others had leather wraps in place of the metal pieces unless an injury warranted leaving the area exposed.

As she watched the Yautja come and go about their business, K'Shai noticed some of them with injuries that appeared almost as severe as R'chnt's. Some of them had damaging wounds, still glowing green with bruises and blood, to their sides, thighs, chests, and arms. Two she spotted as time ticked by, were missing extremities; one from the elbow down, the other an arm entirely from the shoulder.

One other Yautja that limped heavily into the cantina, thumped past their table grumbling and noisily collected food onto his heavy metal tray-sized dinner plate was missing an eye and had severe scars – obvious claw marks – running through his cheek and over the crest of his head. The wounds to his cheek were so severe K'Shai could see the lights from the room shimmering through unhealed holes.

The hunter was dressed in heavy leather and armor and carrying a full variety of weapons all methodically attached to his back. Axe type blades with jagged edges and spears as straight as arrows all shot up past his head like the spindle spines on the _kainde amedha_ 's back.

Once the hunter's plate was full, he limped past their table again, acknowledging R'chnt respectfully with a deep nod of his damaged head, and seated himself across from them, glancing up at K'Shai from time to time as he tore into his meat.

She barely even realized hours had passed, and she had done almost nothing but people watching and talk to R'chnt. He remained quietly seated next to her, barely moving, only talking so much as to inform her of facts about their meals or some of the inner workings of Yautja life aboard the ship.

Several females entered the cantina and took to their own table, drawing brief glances from the males nearby whenever they thought they could look without sparking their ire.

The feeling in the room was tense enough as it was and K'Shai eventually realized that R'chnt had kept her front and center alongside him quite on purpose. Just as much as she was eyeing up everyone around her, he was ensuring that anyone who entered the room saw her, and him towering next to her, rigid, alert, embracing her; protecting her, identifying her as his, and with a right to be there.

The thought, once it finally sank in, humbled her and she found herself surveying R'chnt again in silence.

She was sure that he was pained, weak, fatigued and yet he casually strode her the longest routes possible around the ship, walking carefully with each step, forcing himself not to limp or drag the leg on his damaged side, making sure that the most amount of hunters, workers, and 'aseigan all saw her, then finally planting himself with her at a table to eat and rest, silently building his strength over food and drink, making a show of both of them.

K'Shai only left his side twice, to replenish both their drinks and get a second helping of fruits.

Both times, every head in the room turned to her, and she could feel the stares of the Yautja burning through her body as she walked away from R'chnt. He surveyed her and the room around her as K'Shai left his side, warily watching whatever hunters, workers, and slaves that happened to be there, for any hint, any sign at all, that they would attempt to harm her.

He needed them to be aware of her presence, her scent, her pregnancy, and most of all, his scent on her. He clicked and rumbled and glared as necessary, partially in response to the tremendous pain in his side, but well masked enough by his posture and glare to ensure it was taken as direct dominance over anyone who might think to question him.

Once enough time had passed and enough others had seen the two of them, and he felt that K'Shai had had enough nourishment for both herself and the offspring, in addition to having plenty of time to look at the people who busied themselves around her, R'chnt rose slowly to his feet and guided her out of the cantina.

He took a circumvented route around the inner corridors of the Clan ship, up a lift at a far end, and through the massive docking bay for the elite hunters that were given a spot inside the _jag'd'atoll_ to dock their hunt ships until the war was done.

He watched K'Shai as she stared in wonder at parts of the ship she had never seen before. She looked over the hunt ships they walked past and warily eyed a multitude of _'aseigan_ that were coming and going, performing work as the ship owners required, bringing trophies to the ships, gathering supplies and tending to their tasks.

Each one of them paused momentarily to glance up from lowered chins to K'Shai, some of them ducking into deep bows as R'chnt growled a warning threat to them for eyeing her too long.

K'Shai felt the hair on the back of her neck prick every time R'chnt rumbled at any of the 'aseigan. She wasn't sure if it was the ominous sound itself that elicited the response, or the way the jumpy slave Yautja reacted upon hearing it that made her wary.

They were such a stark contrast to a hunter like R'chnt; smaller and scrawnier, broken, battered, and fearful, and when he growled at them the way he did, they jumped almost out of their skin as they quickly did whatever was necessary to indicate to him they were subservient.

Some of them dropped their heads so low their back hunched. Others stopped whatever it was they were doing and shuffled away carefully, moving completely out of sight of R'chnt, but in such a manner that they never turned their back to him.

They acted as though he would kill them just for trying to catch a peek at her, and yet he was clearly parading her around on display for that exact purpose. She wasn't sure if he was making a point or looking for a fight, or both, but whatever the reasoning he had, the effect was obvious and it was working.

He finally came to a stop at the tail end of a hunt ship and approached it, depressing a panel on the hull and a door above their heads opened up and a ramp came out. K'Shai pressed her lips together into a smile, certain that this was R'chnt's ship, yet asking the question aloud all the same as she entered into it before him.

"Yes," he confirmed and she gaped in amazement at the shell-like vessel, full of curves and ripples in its sleek hull.

The room she stepped into was obviously a _kehrite_. It was spacious, oval and adorned with pillars etched with ceremonial inscriptions that she had seen in similar rooms on the Clan ship already. It had a tall and ornate dome ceiling that glowed amber. The soft heated lights cast heavy shadows made by the winding patterns of black metal that flowed and curved throughout the room.

R'chnt stepped over to one of the four arcing entryways in the room that led to other corridors, stopped and pressed another set of panels and suddenly, the walls in the _kehrite_ moved. K'Shai stared all around her as five massive panels of wall sections all glided open smoothly and silently, opening like garage doors, sinking back into recesses behind the walls, and exposing massive trophy cases filled with bolted down skulls, weapons and clawed extremities, all shined to glimmering polishes and neatly and carefully displayed.

He watched her bounce from display to display, looking at everything, bounding around the kehrite with enough energy to fuel her through a spar. She was eager and excited, wide eyed and anxious as she tried to absorb all that she saw and heard from him.

After a short while, he stopped her gazing wonder with an elevated palm.

"I will teach you all, K'Shai. It will take time. Be patient. For now, come. I will show you the ship."

She followed him around his vessel, mapping out every inch of it for her, taking her patiently through the corridors and into all of the rooms.

The vessel was composed of two levels, each with two corridors. It was a large ship, big enough to house fifteen hunters, with bunk space in the lower communal quarters for twelve Yautja and three private chambers on the upper level.

There was a shared bathroom and shower area adjacent to the communal sleeping chambers, while two of the private chambers each had their own small facilities. The lower level consisted of a shuttle bay with R'chnt's personal shuttlecraft.

In the shuttle bay, there was also a large wet room with long preparation areas for cleaning trophies and cutting meat.

Beyond a sectioning wall there was, essentially, a walk in refrigeration unit, which was currently looking a little sparse on meats and fruits; unnecessary since they were currently docked inside a vessel big enough to hold forty hunt ships inside of it, with another docking bay capable of holding eighty shuttles, beyond the four dozen docking ports on the outside, all of which currently utilized.

The _jag'd'atoll_ itself was capable of holding ten thousand Yautja under normal use, although at the moment there were only a fraction of that number aboard.

R'chnt's ship was more like _home_ than the utilitarian atoll.

K'Shai was guided to the cantina, which comprised the entire front section of the lower level, another arcing round room, connected to the refrigeration section by a shared wall with an access door. There was a kitchen, with grills and sinks for preparing food and a stock of platters and chalices.

The lower level also housed an engine room and an armory, which was locked. R'chnt opened it for her to have a look inside at the dozens of helmets, armor pieces, and weapons. He told her he would see to it that she received properly fitted _awu'asa_ when she was ready.

The upper level was far more ceremonial than the lower deck, which reminded her more of the _atoll_.

The _kehrite_ took up much of the space on the upper level. One of the four doorways in the round room led to a prayer temple, another round room, small, with no seating; it was intended for Yautja to show respect to their gods from a seated position on the floor.

The temple was ornately decorated with many skulls and inscriptions carved into the wood and metal of the walls and ceilings, and there were two leather bound books on stands at the front of the room, each one emblazoned with gold embellishments in Yautja script on the covers.

The other three doorways out of the training dojo all led to the corridors on either side of the ship. To one side, the corridor led to two private sleeping chambers for the two highest level hunters of R'chnt's hunting pack.

One chamber was W'rsa's and the other was Gyr'in-de's, the medic who had died in the same attack that cut down R'chnt. He informed her that those chambers would be up for grabs by whoever proved themselves worthy of them once the war was done.

"What happens to his belongings?" She asked curiously.

"When an elite hunter dies, most of his possessions are returned to the Clan, displayed proudly wherever they are best suited. His armor, if not damaged beyond use, is able to be claimed by the most worthy to wear it. Some of his trophies will stay aboard my ship; he served me and this vessel well. His body will be incinerated on the home world. Along with many more no doubt."

K'Shai pressed her lips together thoughtfully as she considered R'chnt's tone upon his last words. Somewhere along the way, she did not realize when, the fighting and the death had just become a way of life for her. It was simply how life was, and she had stopped thinking long ago about how many had been lost.

When she first saw the Yautja fighting the hard meat so ferociously and looking fearless and unstoppable, it really never occurred to her just how many hunters were perishing for their efforts.

She still could not begin to speculate how many were dying; she didn't even know how many were on Earth as it was, but R'chnt's tone reflected a definite sadness that implied the numbers lost would be far more than she could imagine.

He continued on showing her the control room and she stared from the computer consoles and three large seats, out the massive viewing windows at the front, watching the 'aseigan outside strum about their business as a few hunters lingered in the docking bay.

K'Shai was starting to see the differences in physical appearance between the 'aseigan, the hunters, and the blooded Yautja who were following other Paths.

After a brief tour of the control room in which he assured her that he would walk her through all the computer functions and flight controls eventually, he directed her out of the room, immediately to the left, down the adjacent curving corridor that left just one more doorway she had yet to enter.

R'chnt depressed a panel and nodded his head slowly to her and she stepped through and into his chambers. She felt her heart speed up excitedly and nervously as she got her first look at where R'chnt lived and slept. The chambers were massive and comfortable; taking up the entire full side of the vessel.

Like a split level home, there were three levels to the chambers, each circular room just a few stairs above the one adjacent to it. The door from the corridor led into what she could only call a living room or sitting area.

There were large chairs of cloth and leather in a semi-circle along one side of the round room, and a two or three Yautja-sized sofa that looked a lot like an oversized futon, only much heavier framed and matted, on the other side. There was a table between the seats, like a coffee table, and hide on the floor serving as an area rug.

The far wall had a massive viewing window and above and below and along-side it, and everywhere else possible in the entire sprawling chambers were trophies of skulls and weapons and claws and tails and hands and feet and jewels; interesting objects from dozens of worlds, dozens of species, over four centuries worth of Earth's time.

K'Shai gaped in wonder, feeling fairly sure that it would take her a century just to investigate everything he had in his chambers alone. It was a little like walking into a museum and pirate's treasure chest all at once.

Down a few steps to the lower section of his chambers was another, smaller, personal sparring _kehrite_ , adorned with two pillars and many more weapons, each one carefully displayed and easily accessible for whatever type of routine he was working on.

To her left and up a half a dozen stairs was the sleeping area and K'Shai turned and approached it, surveying the trophies all over the walls as she went.

On one side of the sleeping chamber was another smaller armory, for R'chnt's personal _awu'asa_.

K'Shai gaped in amazement at the meticulously laid out, almost OCD level, armor, neatly aligned and displayed along three walls. On one wall, there were eight helmets along the top row all differing in ornamentation.

Chest armor below them protruded from braces on the wall and below that the rest of the armor pieces all caringly stored, readily accessible.

Another wall housed a variety of spears, swords, and staffs with single and double blades, plasma caster weapons and a variety of knives and replacement _dha'kte_ wrist blades and what looked like a basket full of something that resembled grenades.

On the far wall was R'chnt's armor that had been removed from him when he was brought into the jurite, all carefully displayed, but still covered in his blood. Someone had obviously been charged with bringing it back to his ship, but she presumed they were told not to clean the armor.

She turned to look at the rest of the room. The large bed, stately, regal, and tall, was more like a thick mattress atop a platform of an intricately etched bone base.

It was pressed against the wall, probably the only straight wall in the room, she noticed. The well-padded bed was covered in rich and luxurious looking covers that at first glance appeared to be made from golden silk.

As she drew closer to the bed and investigated the sheets with her fingers, she realized they were leather, so finely sleek and soft to the touch they were unlike anything she had ever seen on Earth, though the material did look quite similar to some of the elegant looking garments she saw some of the females wearing.

Above the bed, enough to give anyone nightmares, she thought, was a massive skull of a hard meat queen. She felt her body prickle and tense as she looked closer at the skull, deciding that it was going to take quite a bit to get used to that hovering above her while she slept.

R'chnt watched her quietly as she surveyed his chambers. She moved off to an adjacent door where she found a private bath house, complete with something that looked every bit like a sunken hot tub and a shower nearby.

The chambers were comfortable, no doubt. Well-appointed with anything anyone could need to be content without being superfluous.

The quarters were well-designed to accommodate the training needs of an experience Yautja while doubling as a museum of various creatures and weapons throughout the universe.

"This ship, K'Shai, is yours to roam freely. No one will come aboard, no one will disturb you. You can instruct the 'aseigan to bring you food, drink, anything you need. You will go with the females tomorrow, but you can always return here. I will show you how to lock the ship if you prefer."

She eyed him suddenly, widely.

"Why? You're going to be here, right?"

"I will return to the planet. I must return to the hunt."

"What? R'chnt you can't be serious?"

He turned and glared at her a little with an 'of course I'm serious' sort of look.

"You're just going to leave? R'chnt you…you…how…" she stammered again, jaw dropped, gaping at him in worry.

He watched her heart begin to pound, her body surging with anxiety. He considered that she was worried about being without his company, in child, on a vessel that was as familiar as home to him but completely foreign for her. Acknowledging her concern, he tried to settle her.

"Of course you would probably be more comfortable in the mei'sa with the females. Neh'rti expects this and you would not be alone. You will need to learn the ways of the females."

K'Shai shook her head, almost a little frantically.

"No, that isn't the problem. I don't see…" she paused, trying to calm herself so she could formulate her sentences in Yautjan carefully.

"I don't see how you can just _go back_ and hunt. Surely you need to recover still?"

R'chnt sunk down onto the edge of the bed, sighing deeply, watching her as he pondered the situation more. He slowly realized she was concerned for him still, even though he stood tall and displayed his ability to protect her.

She eyed him quietly, a wide look of anxious worry on her face, one hand cradled unconsciously over her belly as she faced off with him. He flared his mandibles and dropped his eyes, both uncomfortable with spurring her temper and reacting to the suggestion that he was somehow _incapable_ of returning to the hunt.

If she thought he was too weak to continue, surely others would as well, which would put himself, her and the offspring at great risk. He tried to work out how to explain that to her, but his attempts to do so, no matter how logical he spoke, seemed to baffle K'Shai even more.

"You can't protect me if you're dead," she exasperated.

"You have lost faith in my strength." He said once again, the circular conversation not apparently having an end.

"No, R'chnt. I think you're the strongest person I've ever known. Right now, though, you're being _headstrong_. How can I…" she paused, trying to figure out how to make him understand that she was not trying to insult his fighting skills by displaying her worry for his well-being.

She knew, although she barely understood the logic, that somehow being injured as he was was actually some kind of embarrassment to him. It was dizzying to try to figure out that mentality, so she changed tactics.

"Are you planning to leave today?"

Finally, he thought, she was coming around and understanding where his position required him to be. It was obvious she was tired and stressed and perhaps overwhelmed with too many changes all at once.

"Tomorrow, I will leave." R'chnt said plainly. He stood, slowly, as K'Shai noticed, and removed his loin cloth as he strode towards the bathroom.

"Come," he indicated and she entered with him.

He helped her remove her garments and he sank into the hot pool. K'Shai toed the water, hissing at how hot it was and slowly waded into it as her body adjusted to the temperatures.

She leaned up against him, holding on to the side of the tub so she wouldn't submerge. The water was deep enough for him to stand up and still be chin-deep in it. She couldn't touch bottom but she supported himself half against him and half crouching awkwardly on the sitting ledge below the surface.

R'chnt reached to a shelf on the wall behind him and opened a bottle, depositing some crystalline contents into the water, which immediately made the water react like he just poured alka seltzer into it.

Within seconds, her body began to tingle and suddenly every muscle relaxed; the effect was incredible. She pressed herself against his body and soaked there with him for as long as she could tolerate the heat.

When she went to climb out of the water, her body had relaxed so much she could almost not stand. She felt like she was made of Jello.

The soak seemed to have a similar effect on R'chnt. She noticed he had a little trouble coming out of the pool. He dried off and returned to bed immediately and was asleep within seconds, exhausted.

K'Shai watched him until she herself curled up next to him to sleep, comfortably nude next to his own garment-free body. She had pondered furiously, her mind endlessly working its way in circles, trying to understand how he could be so willing to go off to certain death just to prove he wasn't weak. It made no sense at all.

When the morning came, if it was morning, she really could not tell, R'chnt went to rise with a grumble, barely sitting upright without a struggle.

K'Shai pressed her lips together and slipped over to him, resting her palms on his shoulders and pressing her face against his temple and her chest into his back. He was moving slowly, wearily, not jumping to his feet with his usual alert alarm.

He was groggy and appeared unfocused as he eased his body back softly into her touch and sharply inhaled against the pain he was clearly feeling.

K'Shai ran her hands over his shoulders down to his chest, back across his biceps and strummed them up delicately through his tresses, carefully tracing her fingers over the metal and bone beads that were fused into his locks, stimulating him into a bit more of a relaxed state.

"Let me get some of those oils, why don't you lay back and let me rub you," she whispered gently to him.

She was almost a little surprised when he did so without a word, expecting him to protest and prepare for his day.

She retrieved a variety of bottles from the bath area and in a few minutes, the sleeping chambers were filling up with the pleasant, if a bit overpowering, alien scents of musky and spicy oils as she worked them into his tresses while his soft rumble relaxed into a deep purr.

Slowly, K'Shai worked each and every lock, ignoring her rumbling belly, silently apologizing to R'chnt's offspring growing inside her for not providing enough nourishment at the moment, and ignoring the call of her bladder as well.

She had R'chnt so relaxed, leaning against her with his head in her lap that she dared not move to disturb him. As she worked oils into every tress, cleaning them and soothing him with her delicate touch, watching him loll his eyelids as he rested, she found herself staring from him to the open door of the armory beyond the bed, eyeing his armor surplus and the damaged and blood stained equipment that he nearly died in.

Everything about him, about his chambers, about his ship itself, all of it, was bred and built for deadly combat.

She thought about L'ruch's words to her about strong hunters making strong clans, and slowly, through a mixed up series of thoughts, she began to understand his logic behind his desire to return to Earth so quickly, and she started to realize that much of it was spurred by her.

Dying on the planet in an honorable fight was not something he feared at all. It was the total opposite of her, who needed him so much she could not envision her life without him.

She somehow felt that she would not live past an hour beyond his death. In some strange way, the Yautja viewed surviving such injuries, for a noble hunter of R'chnt's bloodlines and heritage, to be a sign of weakness, not strength.

Cheating death, something humans utilized immense measures to accomplish, had a much deeper and very different meaning to the Yautja and she had a sinking feeling in her gut when she realized he was so keen to get back to fighting to prove that he was not trying to actively avoid an honorable death.

He purred below her as she continued to stroke oil into his hair strands and she let her mind slip from all thoughts, forcing out the riddle that was Yautjan logic from her mind and instead focusing on the feel of his tresses and his skin.

She lubed her hands up with another coating of hot oils and massaged his scalp, working her fingertips carefully over and around the ridges along his head and the small protruding horns, massaging oils deep into the follicles for each quill that lined his jaws, eliciting a deeper purr from him.

She leaned over, moving her head closer to his, pressing her face against his, kissing him delicately.

The oils tasted sweet and made his skin even warmer than normal. She slid her hands from his head to his chest and leaned as far forward as she could reach, extending her fingertips towards his hips, working the oils into every muscle, carefully tracing the puckered injury on his right side, passing over it and rubbing the soothing liquids along the grainy textures of his skin and into old scars, pressing her lips slowly against his cheek in rhythm with the soft sounds of her breathing.

R'chnt shut his eyes completely, letting the gentle feeling of his mate's hands fill him with pleasure and relax him fully.

Comforted and eased between the warmth of K'Shai's body, the oils working into his skin, and the temperate serenity of his chambers, R'chnt lulled himself into restfulness while K'Shai tended to him.

She eventually shifted her position completely, moving out from under him. She continued on with her rub down, straddling over his knees so she could work the oils into his thighs before she slid her delicate body down further and rubbed him to his toes.

She tended to every part of his body while he laid placidly, filling the wide oval space with his deep rumble.

He had intended to rise and take K'Shai through the ship again until he needed to return her to the company of the females so he could return to the planet below.

The pain in his side was tremendous, but he tried to ignore it, though it made him feel tired. He slipped easily into a state of relaxation, distracted from his agenda by the touch of K'Shai's skin and lips against him.

She worked her way back up from his toes to his thighs, straddling him lightly as she rounded her back and lowered her head to him, kissing his abdomen, stroking the insides of his thighs as she groaned softly.

R'chnt's purr turned to a heightened trill as K'Shai caressed her hands across his groin, taking firm hold of his masculinity and rubbing him into a partial arousal, her thumbs gently caressing his shaft back and forth, working his excess skin folds until they smoothed out over his hardness before she lowered her lips around him, thrilling him with sensation as she moved her tongue around him and sucked, carefully avoiding painful contact with her teeth around his delicate areas.

He rolled his head back as he arched his back, pressing his hips up and forward to accentuate the feel K'Shai was offering him.

He moaned deeply and grabbed the sheets, curling his fingers around them until his talons depressed into the mat below his palms and his body surged with delight and pleasure.

Between her hands rubbing gently, stimulating him and her lips working their way along and around his shaft and tip, R'chnt could only succumb to the sensations flowing through him, howling as those sensations worked their way out of him in hot fluid that K'Shai accepted.

She eased herself off of him slowly, stroking his body with her trailing fingers as she did, and retrieved a damp towel from the bathroom.

Once they were both cleaned, she leaned into him as he relaxed, stretched out, eyes still shut. He was suddenly no longer in pain, his mind had been successfully distracted from whatever it was he thought was going to do when he started his day.

"I'm going to get us some food." She whispered softly to him, pressing her face against his as she spoke slowly and smoothly. "You stay here and rest, OK?"


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Still a bit dazed, R'chnt purred in agreement and K'Shai realized that he had drifted back off to sleep before she had even made it to the door of his chambers.

She paused to survey him, listening to a tell-tale grumble in his breathing that told her all she needed to know about his condition and as she left him to rest, she found herself wishing that she could lock his door from the outside without him being able to open it. She assumed it probably could lock and her eyes suddenly scanned the walls to the panel that controlled the door, as if she could figure out how to lock him in his own room.

Recalling that the foodstocks on R'chnt's ship were paltry at best, K'Shai decided on finding her way to one of the cantinas in the atoll, but first, she had to make a side stop and she was sure she could find the way.

She caught the attention of every single Yautja she passed and noticed how they reacted to her as she made her way through the nearly empty corridors. The 'aseigan glanced her way only for a split second before returning to their own business so sharply and jumpily she assumed they were reacting as if R'chnt was lingering in a nearby shadow, ready to pounce.

She passed a handful of worker Yautja, Blooded into the Clan, but not hunters, who also cleared out of her path. Though they did not nod their heads to her, they still moved aside and maintained a healthy respect and K'Shai started to realize why R'chnt had put her on display the way he had.

Several hunters did see her, and their reactions were far different than the lower castes of males. They gazed at her without any attempt to hide it as they rumbled to each other, stopping what they were doing to crane their necks or move to different locations just to see her better as she slowly stalked the corridors, working her way through her memory trying to find her destination.

When she rounded another corner, she recognized exactly where she was and made her way into the jurite, catching L'ruch's attention as soon as she entered.

A hunter was seated on the exam table, allowing L'ruch to seal a large injury to his arm. His battered biohelmet still covered in fluorescent green blood, was resting next to him. K'Shai noticed the fine details on the helmet, with sharply protruding horns along the edges of it, making it almost look like a kainde amedha queen head.

R'chnt had gone through at least three biohelmets in the time she had known him. His current one, still bloodied up as it was displayed on a mount in his armory, she thought suited him the most. It was sleek and dark bronze, almost black, and had tubework on the cheeks that housed wiring to the internal controls. Simple, functional, deadly.

K'Shai had noticed the variety of biohelmets so far with all the different hunters she had seen. Some were unadorned, just basic curved helmets that covered their heads like a perfectly fitted shell, while others were etched with writings or damage from fights, and adorned with ornamentation, ridges, or anything else that personally appealed to the hunter that wore it.

"What is _that_ doing here?" K'Shai heard the hunter on the exam table grumble as he glared at her.

She tried to pretend she didn't hear the comment, and she wasn't sure how she should respond. Yautja were very attuned to not only body language, but also, she noticed, to eye contact.

One Yautja diverting his eyes to his feet to avoid eye contact with another was just as acceptable form of respect as a full bow, but K'Shai was only just beginning to learn that the depth of the respect depended upon the level of ranks between the two Yautja as well as gender.

Females seemed to be naturally higher ranked than males, and usually their gesture of respect was a subtle head nod without loss of eye contact, while males returned it with a deeper drop of their head and shifted eye contact.

The hunter stared at K'Shai as L'ruch half turned to glance at her when she entered. K'Shai wanted to drop her eyes to the ground just to avoid the almost painful gaze of his burning eyes.

Her immediate reaction, to submit to the hunter before her as if she were inferior, she immediately thought was probably not the appearance R'chnt was trying to convey with her, so she instead surveyed his battered body, looking at the wounds the healer was tending to as if they somehow concerned her, which served to allow her to directly look at him without making eye contact. It was a somewhere-in-between response that at least worked to her advantage.

She said nothing and neither did L'ruch. The hunter grumbled, grabbed his helmet up and shifted off the table to his feet, pushing his way passed L'ruch rather rudely, then pounding his way out of the room heavily, his clawed toes ticking the metal planks below them, but he diverted his eyes away from K'Shai as he passed her.

"R'chnt is teaching you well, I see." L'ruch said with a clearly pleased tone in his voice.

K'Shai turned to him with a satisfied grin, though she tried to actively settle her pounding heart.

"That's what I came to talk to you about." She said quietly.

"I see. You are concerned for him." L'ruch responded with a questioning tone hidden in a statement.

"Yes, I am." She sighed deeply, not really understanding the tone in L'ruch's voice, as if it was such a shock that she was worried about him.

She tiptoed closer to him and spoke in a whisper so softly she could ensure that L'ruch's assistants would not hear, as if the conversation they were having was a highly secretive subject. She did not quite know why but she realized that it was, and needed to be handled carefully.

"It's just that….He's…. well…he….uhhh…" she fumbled over her words.

"Is in pain, too stubborn to admit it, and ready to head off to the hunt again?" L'ruch filled in the blanks with a familiar distasteful snigger in his voice.

K'Shai smiled and nodded, relieved that L'ruch had put it so eloquently.

"As any proper hunter should be," L'ruch confirmed.

"Is there… maybe… anything I can do for him? Give him perhaps? For the pain? Or… maybe to keep him unconscious until he heals?"

She was not sure she was exactly kidding about the last part, but L'ruch seemed to understand her concerns and busied himself with retrieving supplies from a nearby cabinet. He turned back to her and handed her a syringe and pointed to lighted notches on the side of it.

"One dose at a time… if you can get him to take it."

"Thank you." She said to him with a grateful, deep head nod before she turned to leave. L'ruch returned the gesture, eyeing her with a hint of surprise that she had done so.

She stopped and considered L'ruch and what she had seen of him so far, from his behaviour and looks to how the hunters seemed to acknowledge him only briskly, pushing past him, like he wasn't worth their time. Even R'chnt had acted that way towards him, though L'ruch had aided in saving his life. She turned back to him.

"L'ruch, why is it that it seems like the hunters don't really…." She paused, trying to think of a way to articulate her thoughts without seeming rude.

She wasn't sure if the Yautja acted superior to L'ruch due to rank or because they really were simply _embarrassed_ that they needed medical attention.

"Are they all stubborn…about …. Getting help?"

"The hunters are absolute in their power and skill. And with good reason. To them this in an inconvenience. An annoyance. They are _doers_ , K'Shai. Not _thinkers_. They are proud of their scars, but they lack the patience for anything that does not involve hunting. Needing _help_ , K'Shai, is considered a sign of weakness. Had the situation been any different, R'chnt would now be dead. This is all most unusual."

K'Shai eyed him worriedly, trying to process exactly what he meant.

"You mean, if not for me?"

L'ruch nodded a slow confirmation.

"I'm curious," K'Shai asked carefully, "about your chiva. You said hunting was not your Path. I don't really understand that? You are Blooded, but I thought only hunters were Blooded? I thought being Blooded proved strength?"

L'ruch seemed to both hold an admiration and distaste for the hunters and hunting. It was a curious thing to her. It seemed as if he wished he could have been a hunter, but yet he _did_ pass the chiva, which means he did hunt.

"I was a _thinker_ , K'Shai." L'ruch said simply.

"I survived chiva and earned my place in the Clan."

K'Shai presumed that there was a lot more involved in surviving the chiva training than she could realize and as she thought about her own experiences on Earth having been enough to have rightfully earned the Blooding mark in R'chnt's view, she thought maybe she had a good idea of how intense a young Yautja's training was before their own rite of passage came.

She nodded courteously again and turned to leave.

"K'Shai," L'ruch called to her softly and she glanced back at him. "I can see why he has taken such an interest in you."

She smiled softly and dismissed herself out of the door, turning down the next corridor and coming to a halt before Neh'rti and three other females who all turned away from conversation with a couple of male elders to survey her. Without any delay, Neh'rti demanded her join them and K'Shai felt little choice but to follow along obediently.

Neh'rti discussed her business with the two males she had been talking to and then led the other females and K'Shai through the corridors, questioning K'Shai in regards to when she planned to do as the Yautja way expected and join the females in the mei'sa, and again expressing chastising displeasure for her choice to remain with R'chnt.

The other three females were a little more curious about her and questioned her about her unusual alien ways and explained, in somewhat better detail than Neh'rti had, about the ways of the female Yautja as the group made their way through the corridors, down a lift, and along a lower level that K'Shai was sure she recognized.

"Well, R'chnt certainly has made you his _nehpti. Y_ ou are as devoted to him as an 'aseigan, only by choice it seems. You have been _allowed_ to be Blooded into my Clan! Surely you will do that mark honor as R'chnt believes you will or you will find yourself cast into _eta_ and hunted for your meat."

Neh'rti's ominous threat interrupted the conversation K'Shai was having and quickly silenced the other three females as well as herself.

She felt her skin prickle despite the sauna-like warmth of the lower level of the atoll, as if the air suddenly turned frigid. Neh'rti turned away from K'Shai and the others and strode into the leather shop in her shadow.

K'Shai quietly tiptoed in behind the group, suddenly feeling about as comfortable near Neh'rti as a kitten in front of a bear. She walked around the shop instead, surveying the animal pelts that were hanging from tanning racks and the many leather straps that were dangling overhead.

The skins she saw were widely varied, though a few were alarmingly recognizable and made her body shudder. She was absolutely certain two pelts nearby were from alligators or crocodiles, and one furry skin definitely appeared to look quite bear-ish; deep red blood still stained into its fur.

Other pelts were dramatically unlike anything she had ever seen. Most of them looked leathery, but a few pelts that were suspended from powerful looking hooks out of the ceiling looked stiff, as if the hides were metal. One of them had bony ridges giving it an ominous look despite the beautiful array of pastel colors that highlighted its otherwise pasty appearance.

K'Shai rounded a solid pillar that had bones drying off pegs as they dangled, and nearly walked into a Yautja working over a large pelt on a counter top that she hadn't even noticed since she was so busy gaping at everything else around her.

The Yautja barely bothered to look up and K'Shai turned her attention towards the hide he was working on with clearly intense concentration.

It was furry, at least, in patches, but she couldn't tell if it was a beast of Earth or elsewhere, though the color did seem to remind her of a deer. She watched the worker apply a white cream to the leather and allow it to sit for a moment before he scraped it away with a simple piece of wood that was honed to a point along one edge.

The hair was pulled away easily and the leather below looked smooth and supple. K'Shai stepped forward curiously and began scanning the counter top, surveying the tools and creams all around him as he carefully prepared the hide section by section.

"May I see this?" She asked, indicating to one of the jars of cream.

The worker stopped what he was doing and glanced from her to the cream and back again and gestured his head in a sideways nod, looking at her quizzically. His one upper mandible that was pricked in combination with a furrow in his brow was a definite and noticeable sort of _"huh?"_ gaze.

She picked up the metal mug-sized jar of cream and pressed the edge of it to her face, sniffing softly as she investigated it.

The scent of the cream was sweet, like vanilla. It smelled appealing enough to eat, but she was quite sure it most likely was not edible. She rubbed a small amount of it onto the back of her hand. The lotion felt luxurious and silky, elegant.

As she whisked away the excess lotion and the fine hairs on the back of her hand were removed with it, she noticed the spot left behind felt smooth and nourished, as if the lotion also had an exfoliating effect.

K'Shai pressed her lips together into a simple smile as she suddenly thought about how someone on Earth could have made a fortune with such a wonderful smelling lotion that exfoliates, removes unwanted hair, and leaves behind a silky smooth feeling on the skin.

She recalled what seemed like a distant memory when she used to take showers that lasted an hour and meticulously tended to every detail of her appearance. She could recall having everything from fingernail brushes to loofas, in a variety of colors, and every imaginable type of lotion and hair care product possible.

It had been so long since she had clean hair or non-broken fingernails without dirt under them or luxurious lotions on her skin that the first opportunity to take a shower was a welcome treat, despite how incredibly hot the water was. After so long bathing in rain water or lakes, any hot water felt almost surreal.

The Yautja, she had come to know, were fastidious cleaners with rigorous bathing routines that matched their equally rigorous lifestyle.

They would get sweaty, bloody, and beaten up just during normal sparring, and as all things with Yautja were done in a communal way, there were hot pools throughout the _jag'd'atoll_ , segregated by castes, but not genders, where Yautja would soak and cleanse and tend to their grooming habits.

There were even _'aseigan_ who tended to the bath houses and the Yautja who utilized them, who would oil hunters' tresses while they soaked.

It was an unusual thing for K'Shai, to try to adjust to the Yautja's completely nonexistent sense of modesty. In dramatic contrast to humans, especially human females, who were taught from as young as possible to always remain covered up, to never let anyone 'see' them, like somehow their natural form was something to be embarrassed over or ashamed of, the Yautja had no such belief.

She thought quickly to how L'ruch idly walked into the open shower area on her, talking casually, completely oblivious of her discomfort over him doing so while she was disrobed.

She was grateful that R'chnt was privileged enough to have his own private shower and soaking pool, because the idea of utilizing a community bath was awkward and uncomfortable to her, as was her first experience in a communal bathroom amongst the females in the mei'sa.

K'Shai nodded graciously to the Yautja still staring at her like she was crazy and noticed Neh'rti had finished her business and was looming in the doorway, apparently waiting for her with an equally quizzical look.

K'Shai suddenly felt like she was doing something wrong and wanted to rush over to Neh'rti like a child warily coming to her mother when called, afraid of being scolded for causing a delay. She fought that urge, and walked back to the females waiting on her slowly, as if her business was equally as important as whatever Neh'rti was up to.

"Such a strange creature," K'Shai heard one of the Yautja working on a hide rumble to the other. "Are all humans like that?"

"I have no idea," said the other. "I've only ever seen dead ones."

K'Shai ignored the comment as she returned to Neh'rti and the other females and strode with them down the corridor.

"What is a _nehpti?"_ K'Shai asked finally of S'ridi, a young, but prominent female who was well on her way to become an arbritator; a coveted position she was being trained for by right of her bloodlines and her talents in tracking and fighting.

S'ridi was an intimidating female standing almost as tall as R'chnt. Her bold markings of deep reds, purples, and yellows were indicative of her young age, but from what K'Shai had been told, her skills with a blade were well beyond her years.

K'Shai had found S'ridi also to be curious about her, very intelligent, and seemed comfortable with being a sort of buffer between Neh'rti and herself, which she was grateful for.

Before S'ridi could answer, Neh'rti turned and balked at K'Shai with a tone that suggested she should know what the word meant.

"He made you his _nehpti_ in the blood bond ceremony." She informed with a detested hiss to her voice.

K'Shai tried to process what she was being told, and why it was met with such a condescending tone as she drew her own conclusions on exactly what had taken place during the blood bond, which K'Shai associated with a similar human custom between a man and woman that was a celebrated and joyous occasion.

"He made you his _property_ K'Shai. A possession by blood. He is connected to you as you are to him, and he will guard you as his own."

S'ridi informed her and Neh'rti rounded on K'Shai like she had done something horribly wrong.

"Female _Yautja_ are strong, we are not possessions. To him, you are no different than a spear on his wall. And you seem to _enjoy_ it. I can't imagine why. You do not need him to protect you. There is nothing he can do for you that you will not have done in the mei'sa as it should be. You are female."

Neh'rti flared her tusks over K'Shai, clearly agitated although K'Shai wasn't sure if she was trying to display agitation over her choice to remain by R'chnt's side, lack of understanding of K'Shai's nature, or displeasure that K'Shai had not yet taken to the mei'sa, or perhaps all of it combined.

"Humans have a similar custom, like the blood bond. I am honored by what R'chnt did. Deeply." She said in a whispered tone of surprise and a subtle bow her head and eyes, just for good measure.

Neh'rti withdrew, quizzically gazing at the small frame of a human that barely made eye level with her abdomen and K'Shai used the quiet moment to dismiss herself from the females. She nodded respectfully to the others, only realizing after she left that it was probably some kind of terrible insult to Neh'rti to turn her back on them.

By the time she had gotten out of view of the females, she was shaking worse than dying leaves on a windy day and felt flustered.

She hurried her way down the turns and curves of the corridors, up a lift, through more of the amber-lit maze of hallways, and nearly walked right into the back of the large, limping, one-eyed hunter from the cantina the day before.

K'Shai had just barely glanced one way while she was walking another and rounded a corner stopping suddenly before she collided with the hunter's spear collection he carried on his back. He spun around in surprise with a growl, which he stopped so abruptly when he eyed her that it actually made her more alarmed that he _stopped_.

The hunter backed away from her slightly, apprehensively, but instead of jumping and hurriedly scurrying out of her path like so many other workers and certainly the 'aseigan had, he stood there, looming, _watching_ her, blocking her path and making her nervous.

"Sach'jal-be"?" He asked grittily if she was lost.

"Hko," K'Shai said, clearly rattled, but denying that she was lost.

She knew where she was headed, but as she turned to leave, she did so more slowly, keenly aware that the hunter, who was not much shorter than R'chnt, but appeared far bulkier due to the heavy armor he was wearing, had locked his eyes on her.

She felt her heart skip a few beats as she realized he began to tail her. Well, he had been heading that direction anyway, she figured.

K'Shai hoped maybe his business would have taken him through one of the several dozen doors she passed en route to the cantina.

He could have gone into three different kehrites, a weapons shop, armor fabrication, or even the bathroom she had passed which connected to one of the community bath houses, but as it was, the hulky hunter thumped along behind her, his limping gait clearly evident by the uneven sounds his talons made as they ticked along on the floor grates.

The cantina couldn't come soon enough. She was hopeful that she could dodge into it and get out from under the heated shadow of the large form following her.

Her shaking amplified when he turned into the cantina right behind her and she wondered if he was purposely looming behind her to frighten her. She knew her heart was pounding away in alarm, no doubt broadcasting her anxiety to him and every other Yautja she passed.

She was already on high alert after her showdown with Neh'rti. The last thing she needed was a hurly Yautja starting something with her while she had no idea what to do, and no R'chnt to protect her.

Neh'rti's words about not needing his protection chiseled away at her. She was supposed to be strong enough to handle herself without R'chnt casting his shadow over her. Suddenly she began to regret venturing out on her own and thought she should have just directed the 'aseigan to do her bidding through a communication panel from the K'ojol.

Spotting one 'aseigan wiping down a counter, keeping his eyes glued to the rag in his hand as three hunters hovering near him filled their platters K'Shai moved over to him, catching the attention of the hunters who all glanced at her, saw the big hunter lingering a dozen feet away and backed off.

The 'aseigan seemed to have no idea which way to turn as the moment suddenly turned tense, but K'Shai acknowledged him _politely_ , which caused the hunters nearby to chuckle and say something amongst themselves that she only partially heard about not talking to 'aseigan that way.

The Yautja language did not have a word for a gracious request such as _please_ , so although she tried to show as much respect as possible, she felt as though she was just bossing around an alien that, though scrawny and unmuscled, still stood more than a foot taller than her and had the natural instincts of a killer bred right into him, even if society had revoked his ability to become one.

She requested him to bring food back to the K'ojol for her, and pointed to everything she expected him to fill onto a tray; clearly enough to feed two. The 'aseigan stared blankly at her as if he was trying to figure out what she was, why she was speaking Yautjan, why she was _ordering_ him in Yautjan, and working out if he really had to pay attention to her.

She became acutely, a little horrifically, aware that the four hunters looming nearby and most likely anyone else in the room, though she dared not turn her head to see if anyone else was present, were all watching her and the 'aseigan stare each other down.

K'Shai was absolutely certain by now that whatever _h'dui'se_ she emanated to them that declared nervousness, she was probably saturated with. She could not, apparently, even get a slave to fill a tray of food and not even twenty minutes earlier, she had more than likely offended the Clan Leader, no doubt securing her death.

Unsure what to do exactly, K'Shai just continued to stare at the 'aseigan staring back at her, each one trying to work out what needed to happen next. The term "awkward silence" suddenly had an entirely new meaning to K'Shai.

"You heard the female!" The big hunter to K'Shai's right side suddenly barked in such a deep rumbling voice it made the 'aseigan jump and his spots turn pale in an instant.

K'Shai flinched at the junkyard dog growl of his voice and eyed the hunter up.

She realized she had unintentionally cast him an ' _I was handling it'_ type of glare, but whether or not he had picked up on it she did not know. He did not acknowledge the look, nor did he say anything else, though he did cast a warning glare at the other three hunters who were sniggering over K'Shai's inability to properly command an 'aseigan.

Whether or not she had to, she waited for the 'aseigan to fill up the tray with the requested fruits, nuts, meats, and something that looked a bit like an eel. Her patience was quickly fraying, though.

He could not have filled the tray fast enough as far as she was concerned, she just wanted to get out of there and run back to R'chnt's ship, completely uncomfortable with all that had transpired.

Certain that all the Yautja now thought she was a fool and that Neh'rti was most definitely planning to behead her at her earliest opportunity, whenever it wasn't an inconvenience to her to extend herself to do so, K'Shai fretted the entire way back to R'chnt's hunt ship with a mug of hair removing lotion in one hand and a syringe of pain killers in the other and an _'aseigan_ in tow, carrying a tray of food, completely unaware of the display she was making by walking ten steps ahead of a bow-headed 'aseigan performing work for her.

Once he deposited the tray on the floor outside R'chnt's quarters, K'Shai nodded her gratitude to him for helping her bring the supplies there, and he appeared so stunned by her gesture that he actually shifted away from her with clear uncertainty.

Not knowing what condition R'chnt would be in when she opened the door, she waited until the _'aseigan_ was well out of sight before she depressed the door panel, holding her breath as she did, halfway wondering if R'chnt would even be inside.

She stepped through the threshold, past pegs that displayed shined toothy trophy skulls and glanced first to her left, to the sleeping chamber, to an empty bed. Her eyes scanned past the doorless frame to the bathroom and throughout the circular sitting room, past the massive viewing window that currently had a view of the plain bulkhead wall of the docking bay beyond it, and then to her right to R'chnt's personal sparring _kehrite_.

She pressed her lips together in a curious smile as she spotted him, kneeling and stationary in the middle of the circular space, between the two engraved pillars.

She quietly made her way over towards him, setting down the mug of lotion on a small table as she moved on. She lingered behind R'chnt, watching him in silence, holding her breath. R'chnt made no motion at all for a long moment.

Many times, K'Shai had seen him hold so still he looked like a statue; it was an impressive skill, although at the moment he did not even appear to be breathing. If he was not holding himself upright, she would have been alarmed.

He finally exhaled, making a soft clicking sound as he lowered his center of gravity and sat on his lower legs as he tipped his head in her direction.

"I didn't want to disturb you." She said softly. "Were you meditating or something?"

She crouched down next to him and R'chnt directed her silently to move in front of him, guiding her with one hand gripped over her as he carefully positioned her where he wanted, on her knees facing him.

"Do you feel alright?" She asked him as her eyes unconsciously dropped to the bruises and still healing wounds on his lower right abdomen.

R'chnt dipped his head softly. " _Zazin," hie_ said _. "_ I was focusing my thoughts."

He watched her, considering her position in this incredibly unusual situation. He knew he should be dead.

His injuries were severe and although his natural drive spurred him to return to the hunt, he had spent the last hour succumbing to the thought that his wounds were keeping him from his full ability and how that reflected on him and how K'Shai was responding to all of it.

She eyed him with concern, but showed nothing even close to contempt for his weakened state. She worried over his condition without suggesting he was incapable, though he had wrongfully assumed she had. She tended to him now, reaching to him with concern and a syringe of medication to dull the tremendous pain in his side, but he knew she was not trying to insult his ability or strength.

"I thought maybe you could use this. I know you're hurting. Please don't go back. Not yet."

He parted his upper tusks into a small smile and as she stroked his arm with one hand. He retrieved the syringe from her slowly, looking at it in consideration before he handed it back to her and nodded his gratitude. Without a word, she triggered the control on the device to dispense the amount of medication L'ruch had told her to give him and she injected it into his bicep then sank back down next to him surveying him quietly.

"Neh'rti is _very_ insistent that I stay in the mei'sa." K'Shai informed him. "I just want to be with you. I don't understand what I am supposed to do there. I don't understand why it's so important I am away from you."

"Neh'rti is Clan Leader. She oversees all Clan business, and females and offspring are her main concern. She will expect me to return to the hunt and you to learn the ways that I cannot teach you."

K'Shai processed his words and questioned him.

"Female and male Yautja really have little to do with each other, don't they?"

"Females raise offspring and tend to matters of the mei'sa and the Clan." He said with a slight nod. His powerful voice, slightly raspy, was barely above a whisper. "Very few hunt. But all is different for you. I will teach you as a hunter. You will need to know."

"Why? Why must I _need_ to know how to hunt? Am I supposed to hunt and be in the mei'sa? I don't understand…" K'Shai questioned him, staring intently at his deep golden eyes.

He said nothing, but waited. She was clearly still contemplating the matter, and he tried to figure out why. K'Shai was strong and capable, a proven fighter that simply needed more training to hone skills she denied she even had.

"What…what did L'ruch do?" She questioned quietly.

R'chnt tipped his head curiously.

"I do not understand, K'Shai?"

"I mean… he seems like… he envies the hunters, maybe _regrets_ that he didn't become a hunter. But why couldn't he? He did hunt, right?" K'Shai questioned, trying to work it all out as coherently as possible.

"Hunting was not his Path, K'Shai. Each Yautja must follow the Path the gods set for them. Just as they have set my Path to you, and your Path is now with me."

"I don't understand, R'chnt. You say I _must_ become a hunter, but yet there are Yautja, _Blooded_ Yautja

that are not hunters. I don't understand what it means, hunting was not his Path. He said that, too. What does that mean? Why do you think hunting is my Path?"

"Your Path is with me, K'Shai. I will teach you. I will guide you. L'ruch was weak. You are not."

"Weak? He survived chiva. Isn't that proving your strength? He's Blooded and I am too."

R'chnt paused for a moment, clicking his tusks in consideration as he thought about his response. Was the human way really so different? He would have to try to learn more about human customs to better understand her logic, if such a thing was possible.

He imagined at the very least, learning more about the human ways might help him explain the Yautja ways in clarity she could understand.

"Strong enough to earn the mark of the Clan. Not strong enough to be a hunter," he said simply.

"L'ruch survived chiva by falling over a cliff." He added, and K'Shai eyed him widely.

"What?" She questioned with surprise.

R'cht tipped his head, nodding affirmation.

"During his hunt, K'Shai. His prey pursued him. He fought the beast and lost his footing. He tripped over his own spear. He fell over a cliff and the animal with him. He lived, his prey did not."

K'Shai stared at him blankly, drawing up a mental imagine of a young L'ruch hanging off a cliff as whatever it was he was hunting, or was hunting him, flipped over his shoulder and plummeted to its death.

She did not understand why such a thing made him unworthy of being a hunter, and so questioned R'chnt on the matter further.

"He was not a strong hunter. But, he earned his place in the Clan and he has proven himself a capable healer," R'chnt added after multiple attempts to explain the differences between a strong hunter and a lucky break.

"Hardly worthy of a Hunter's blood. L'ruch would never hold up to a female for breeding."

" _Hold up_ to breeding?" K'Shai asked with a bit of a horrified gasp. What exactly was so challenging about mating, she wondered for a moment. "R'chnt, I think you are going to need to explain to me exactly what that means!"

"You will see," he answered uninformatively.

K'Shai knew R'chnt preferred few words, but he was also a capable story teller, with a clear flare for it. His lack of answer on the subject of Yautja breeding only made her more curious.

"Females are strong. Yautja and human, clearly." He said with a gentle touch of her chin.

"R'chnt, I don't think I have the strength you think…" K'Shai said with a quiet whisper, bowing her head, dropping eye contact, submitting before him.

He placed a taloned hand on her shoulder and squeezed softly, supportively.

"You have already proven you do."

K'Shai eyed him, shaking her head side to side slowly.

"I only did what I _had to_ do."

"There is no difference, K'Shai. You are clever and determined, strong and capable. I have seen this myself."

"But none of this is what I _wanted_. I didn't _want_ to do any of the things that I did. Things that Yautja _enjoy_ and thrive on. That is not what humans do. It's just all do different."

R'chnt huffed a slow and careful breath and ticked his mandibles. He reached a hand to her cheek and cupped the entire side of her head in his palm, stroking her lightly.

"Your strength has been proven. You have earned the mark. Now, you will learn how to bring Honor to it."

"I don't understand, R'chnt. How am I supposed to learn to hunt from you if you go off to Earth? You could be killed. Am I supposed to just _sit_ in the mei'sa and wait and hope you come back?"

"K'Shai, you _do_ know it is a risk to all of us that we may die, but one that is part of our lives. We do not fight death the way humans do." R'chnt explained in a quiet tone.

"Well," K'Shai considered. "I think there's a lot that humans and Yautja do differently."

"There is." He agreed with a deep nod of his ridged head.

She paused for a moment and considered his position on the matter and dropped her eyes as she bit her lower lip slightly.

"R'chnt are you… are you _angry_ that I saved your life?"

He remained silent, surveying her with his golden eyes. She continued on, knelt in front of him with her hands clamped around the solid muscles of his biceps, feeling his immense warmth.

"I just feel like everything is backwards. Yautja and humans are _so different_ , but I… I did what I needed to do. I couldn't just let you _die._ I need you. The baby needs you. We had to try. W'rsa told me to leave you to the gods. He said it wasn't the Yautja way. Neh'rti seems like she doesn't know what to make of me. She just wants me to be away from you. I just… that isn't… this..."

She ran out of words for a moment, paused, and recollected her thoughts as her heart pounded away frantically.

"She called me your _nehptu._ Said I was no different to you than a spear on your trophy wall."

"K'Shai…" R'chnt rumbled finally.

"I have done all I can to protect you; to secure your place in the Clan. Neh'rti expects you to take that place and learn the ways of the females. You _will_ need to return to the mei'sa, but I will remain here for now, until I am stronger. I will stay by your side, I will teach you what I can that you must know. I will help you adjust as best as I can. But I cannot teach you the female ways.

I am not angry, K'Shai. This is an unusual situation. I have only ever known one way. One Path. All hunters wish to die an honorable death, to hear the call of the great god Centanu and know they have followed his Path into Honor. I do not understand _why_ your species fights the will of your gods so much, but I did not hear that call.

I only heard you.

You have made me realize there are other considerations in _this_ life, beyond an honorable death. Yautja, females especially, do not think the same as you; as humans do. They will not see it the same way. They will think I am weak, but this injury will heal and I will be strong again. There will be challenges, but I will prove myself and in doing so, will protect you in that way as well.

You, K'Shai… you must learn to hunt. For you there will be no other way. You are a creature of two worlds now, as is the offspring you carry. You must walk the Path I know the Gods have laid beore you. I will teach you. It will take strength, and it will be difficult, but I will guide you through it."

K'Shai didn't know what to say. She tried to formulate a response, but she stumbled over her own thoughts and instead said nothing.

It was hard to process a way she barely understood. He seemed to realize that her mind needed focusing too, as he shifted his position again and directed her to mimic him.

He could see that she was trying to understand all that she had been told, though she looked more confused than earlier. Her scent reflected her uncertainty and anxiety.

R'chnt considered that as difficult it would be for him to re-prove himself while he remained on the Clan ship and away from his position as Leader, K'Shai was on a far more difficult path.

She looked at him with acceptance and trust that he was not accustomed to. She eyed him with a determined fire that instilled him with confidence that she would adjust to Yautja life and find her place.

He knew she had questions and as she shifted in her crouch before him, she looked impatient, so much like any young Yautja that was ready to tackle their moment of _chiva_ without any real idea of what they would need to know besides the basics of being the strongest.

K'Shai, he knew, had a different kind of strength and a mentality that was backed up by a tempered wisdom far beyond the typical youth in training. She would learn, he knew. For now, she needed to focus her thoughts and begin to understand her own body and mind.

"I will show you," he said to her as he guided her, with a firm grip on her bare sides below the leather garments that covered her breasts, into the position he had been in when she walked in.


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

It was easy, so easy, to lose track of the days in the constant blanket of amber-tinged darkness inside R'chnt's huntship, the _K'ojol_.

Without a sun and moon to rotate through darkness and light, it was nearly impossible for K'Shai to tell what portion of the day she was in. She ate when she was hungry and slept when she was tired, without consideration for time of day.

The Yautja, she noticed, did mostly the same thing as well, though with less frequency on both accounts than her human physiology demanded. K'Shai had become comfortable in the heat and dim illumination inside the K'ojol. She grew more familiar with the way of the Yautja Path that R'chnt diligently and unwaveringly taught her.

Each day was full of a simple, yet rigid program of lessons and training. He would start out with teaching her of prayer, meditation, and the Path of the hunter; the lessons of the gods.

R'chnt utilized the temple for these lessons. She enjoyed her morning lessons through the texts of the gods, sitting cross-legged on the temple floor, like a child in kindergarten listening to her teacher with total enrapture.

K'Shai quickly learned that such practices were performed and observed daily by all hunters and most of the working castes, too. The only Yautja which R'chnt identified as not following any path of the gods were the ' _eto_. This was a caste that fell even lower in rank than ' _aseigan_. 

The 'eto, she learned were such as the ones who had caused the destruction of Earth. They were the ones who turned away from all paths of the gods and honor to which the Yautja adhered so strictly to. Thus, they became the worst type of creatures, not even worthy of being called Yautja. They were hunted and killed. They were _bad blood_.

'Eto were always referred to as such, as K'Shai could not help but notice the bitter snap in R'chnt's words any time the name came up. She could understand why, especially after he began guiding her through the spiritual beliefs of the culture.

The Yautja were a deeply spiritual race, with a powerful religion that guided their every move. She knew she had much to learn, but she felt grateful that R'chnt was an immensely patient teacher.

His slow and methodical guidance of her through their ways and religion would sometimes easily take up hours of the day, the two of them just sitting cross-legged on the floor of the temple, with a large hide-bound book in R'chnt's lap, slowly working their way through not only the difficult to read language full of pictograph symbols that seemed strikingly similar to hieroglyphs, but also through the meaning behind the words; the driving force being the Yautja culture and life.

They would remain in the temple for so many hours that they had taken to simply eating there, while reading through the texts. K'Shai fumbled her way through page after page, and listened to R'chnt, as one explanation would start him off about something else that spawned from what they were reading.

He filled her head with stories of hunts on alien worlds and prey, or even the mechanics of the armor or the methods behind a particular kill. He explained rituals and rites to her, though she did not fully understand all of them.

A section of the text that defined who the god of the hunters, Centanu, was and how he came to be, would spur R'chnt off into stories of great battles of Yautja history and he told them with a tremendous sense of pride and even admiration.

It was obvious, K'Shai realized just a few days into her tutelage, what drove R'chnt to pursue the honor of being a hunter over any other choices he could have had. As he recounted tales of his own hunts, or conquests of great hunters before him, he spoke with pride and admiration.

"How did you break your tusk?" She asked him in a quiet whisper, reaching to stroke his lower left mandible with the cracked tooth.

R'chnt watched her curiously as she caressed his jaws. It was considered highly rude to touch a hunter's tusks, or any Yautja's for that matter.

This included grabbing them during a fight, friendly or otherwise. Even the most savage of opponents locked in a death match, when injuring another's tresses or gonads was not out of the realm of possibility, would still refrain from grappling another's tusks.

Yautja female during mating, likewise never touched the tusks of their mate, although it would be for difficult for her to do so, R'chnt quickly thought, as they would always be buried into her shoulder and neck during breeding to remind her of why she should hold still.

He never minded K'Shai touching his tusks, though. One of the first actions she did when she touched him for the first time was run her small and soft fingers along his jaw line and trace his tusks and quills.

She seemed to be particularly drawn to the cracked one; it was almost habitual how she would grope his chin and that particular tusk. He had come to understand that humans, that K'Shai, needed and preferred intimate physical contact, and understood that K'Shai certainly meant no offense.

He had noticed, through lengthy observation that humans always seemed to touch one another, holding them in both arms, or caressing the head, especially with their lips. It was a normal gesture for her kind and he rather liked the feel of her gentle touch gliding across his calcified skin and bony prides of well-aged tusks, although he was torn on the idea of allowing her to touch them in public view of others.

She watched his eyes flicker in the dim amber glow of the heated backlighting as he recalled the hunt.

"It was my _chiva_ , K'Shai."

She smiled and settled back a bit to listen to the story. It never occurred to her for some reason, that the fractured tusk would have happened on his Blooding hunt.

She tried to envision what he was like when he was young. She imagined him with darker, deeper coloration and black tresses, just as tall and sturdy and screeching a warrior's death cry. He was, no doubt, proud and probably slightly boisterous, confident and maybe even cocky; certain of his absolute power, she imagined with a small grin.

"I had tracked a _rhy'u-than_ for four nights. Do you know what they are?"

K'Shai stared at him blankly.

"No, I can't say I do." She laughed lightly.

He pointed to a skull hanging above the massive window. Centered between a series of carefully laid out spears and swords was a single skull above the viewing portal. The skull was somewhat elongated, though not as much as a hard meat.

To K'Shai, it looked more like that of a horse, perhaps. It was wide, and heavily plated, with three massive tusks on each side, two from the bottom jaw and one from the top, along with a series of horns running in symmetric pairs long the entire ridge.

Although she could not imagine the body to which the skull would have been attached. The fierceness of the trophy itself broadcast a certainty that the rest of the animal it was attached to would have been no easy kill.

"They are cunning creatures, capable hunters themselves. Worthy Blooding prey."

"Are they… on your home world?" K'Shai asked with a bit of reservation.

R'chnt shook his head.

"No, they are on a moon of a firey world two months of rotations from Yaut. That is where my Leader took us for our chiva."

"A group of you hunted that?"

"No, K'Shai. My Leader required us to hunt alone for our chiva. I tracked the creature for four nights. The world was fierce. It had stormed almost the entire time, fire streaking across the sky. The rain poured so hard it would stab my skin as I moved through the rocks.

My Leader required us to hunt with only a spear and body armor. Not even dah'tke blades. We had none of the weapons that the youth today use to make their chiva so _easy_. The _rhy'u-than_ had made its way far from the ship and I was determined to be the first in my group to return with a kill. I found it in a canyon and moved in to make my kill."

"I was impressed with myself," he said proudly, notably puffing his chest and drawing back his shoulders a little bit.

"I had successfully tracked it through the difficult terrain with only my senses. I was muddy, fatigued, but absolutely certain of my kill. It saw me and turned, roaring a mighty call as it flared up its crest and lowered its head ready for the charge. I howled back, raised my spear, calling it on, telling it I was ready to earn my mark."

K'Shai listened intently. "And you killed it?" She urged at his pause.

"No. I was so certain of the _one_ I tracked, I never even noticed the other one charging into me. It slammed into me, drew first blood from my side, and I hit the ground so hard against the rocks that my tusk broke. I did not let go of my spear, though."

"Did it knock your helmet off?" K'Shai asked quickly, interrupting.

"No, K'Shai. My Leader was wise, brutal, but purposeful. He was not like the younger leaders of today. He was nearly the age I am now when he taught me. He insisted on chiva hunting the way it should be; a true test of warrior's mettle. A true way to etch your bloodlines into the Clan or die trying. Spears and body armor only. No helmets."

"Don't Leaders try to …." K'Shai questioned, trying to come up with the right words. "Protect their students to make sure they survive chiva? Wouldn't that make them better leaders?"

"K'Shai!" R'chnt protested with a humored retort.

She did not see what was so funny about the question. She tried to imagine any school teacher not trying to do all they could to ensure their students the best chance of passing.

R'chnt continued on.

"Chiva is to prove you are strong enough to bring honor to the clan. The best leaders protect the _clan_ and push the students to be the strongest. My Leader taught us true strength. Surviving is only the beginning. We learned to hunt with only hand held blades and spears. He would not allow it any other way."

K'Shai could not help but start to grin at the oddly familiar conversation.

"So you never trained in _awu'asa_?"

"We _trained_ with armor, sometimes more armor than any Yautja would normally wear, making it even harder to move, or stopping us from being able to climb or jump. None of it actually functioned, though.

We learned to track with our senses, not our technology. So many of the youngsters today come out of the mei'sa looking to make a name for themselves any way they can. They want the best technology for the hunt. Some of the youngsters even get to _hunt with_ _sivk'va-tai on their blooding hunt!_ "

The distate in his voice was clear, and K'Shai understood the sivk'va-tai was the shoulder mounted cannon. She found it all a little amusing that R'chnt protested the youngsters having such weapons available to them on their first official hunt, and could not help but twist the corners of her lips into a smile.

"I rarely teach youngblood anymore. Brute strength, no brain."

At that, K'Shai laughed loudly and R'chnt drew his tusks back into an amused grin himself.

"So what happened after the _rhee…"_

" _Ree-u hutan,_ " R'chnt assisted with her pronunciation.

"Right, him." She said with a smile nodding to the skull on the wall.

"It flung me so hard to the ground, my tusk broke on the rocks. I was down, winded. Trying to catch my breath and yet, I knew the spear was still in my grip; I hadn't lost it. The animal moved in to pierce me again, certain that it was going to kill me, as I had been mistaken that I would kill its mate. It dropped its head and charged.

Instead of driving its horns into me, I jumped up and used its own head to thrust me onto its back. Raised my spear to make the kill, right between the shoulder blades. The strike was perfect, and the beast was down before it finished its breath.

The first one I had spent all that time tracking had escaped during the attack."

K'Shai giggled softly at R'chnt's dismissive gesture and reached in again to stroke his face, running her fingers over his cracked tusks. He tilted his head more firmly into her touch and she got the unspoken idea that he rather liked how she touched him, though he never said so for sure.

"When I returned to my Leader with my kill, he carved my Blooding mark into me and said that I should always bear the broken tusk as a reminder to respect the prey. To never be so sure of the kill before me that I forget my place. Small mistakes cost hunters their lives. I learned a valueable lesson that day, K'Shai, one that I bear openly as a reminder to my students."

He paused again, and eyed her directly.

"Never underestimate your prey or overestimate your skills as a hunter, K'Shai. And that includes my newest lesson:" he said as he glanced to his goring injury. "Thinking the prey is dead when it is not."

K'Shai lowered her eyes and carefully ran her fingers over the fresh scars. She moved in to him, placing her hands along his abdomen as she pressed her lips into his cheek. She felt his strong and warm hands wrap over her as the low rumble he produced turned to a purr. He shifted uncomfortably, obviously in pain and K'Shai withdrew.

Once they were back in his chambers she injected him again with more painkillers and they slipped into the bath. K'Shai moaned smoothly as the effervescent-like additive to the water fizzed and soothed her body, which was sore from half the rotation sitting on a metal grated floor and the other half of the rotation working on kv'var, training exercises with R'chnt.

"I feel like I'm melting in here. Today, it isn't so bad," she laughed, and lightly stroked her belly. "I wonder if the baby likes it?"

"I am sure," R'chnt agreed.

K'Shai looked at him and smiled softly.

"You Yautja _do_ love the heat. You are lucky to have your own soaking tub like this."

R'chnt snorted in displeasure. " _Luck?_ "

Eyeing him widely, K'Shai clarified her meaning. "I just mean no one else on your ship as one, right? I noticed that on the atoll, they all seem to be community pools. Did you _buy_ this or something?"

He gazed at her quizzically, trying to understand her words. Her Yautjan was improving day by day, but she still sometimes threw in words of her native tongue when she was not sure what to say. _Buy?_ He wondered what that meant, so he questioned her.

"You don't have… _money?"_ K'Shai asked. "It's used to buy things. People with more money can buy more things, and so, they are more… enviable. Like famous people. Like A-list actors. Everybody wants to be like them, but not many really can."

"I do not understand."

K'Shai raised her eyebrows and thought about how exactly to explain, while R'chnt, clearly waiting for her answer, kept himself occupied by eating small fruits off a platter nearby.

"Well, money is what a human works for in order to get things they want. And everybody wants to have more of it…"

"What does this _money_ get a human?"

"Anything but happiness…." K'Shai answered with a loud laugh, which apparently only she thought was amusing. She pressed her lips back together as she eyed R'chnt blankly staring at her and tried again.

"Well, you can use it to buy anything you would like. A house, a car… a hot tub." Her eyes glazed over for a moment as she scanned the bathroom around her, well appointed in all its luxuries, that apparently R'chnt did not need to actually buy.

"Although I suppose maybe Earth will change after this. Maybe money won't be so important anymore. I don't know."

"And this _money_ of yours," R'chnt asked curiously, trying to understand the almost nonsensical ideas that K'Shai presented. "Where does it come from?"

"Well, not tre…." K'Shai started, amusing herself once again, but stopped. "Nevermind." She waved dismissively.

"Ok, so you don't have money, so how did you get this ship?"

R'chnt tipped his head, notably lifting his chin slightly. "The Clan provides."

At that, he received back as curious of a gaze from K'Shai as he had just been giving her a moment before.

"So, you just _get_ a ship from the Clan? It doesn't cost you anything?"

"Yautja that have hunted and proved their worth, and choose to continue the hunt as a Leader, are granted ships. The K'ojol was built for me for that purpose. This _hot tub_ as you call it, was installed as my preference."

K'Shai tried to work out the idea aloud. "You had to hunt to earn the ship? Like you hunted to earn your rank and improve your status?"

R'chnt nodded.

"I guess it cost you blood. But I don't understand what you mean, the Clan provides?"

He clarified her confusion.

"Hunters support the Clan. The Clan supports the hunters."

He watched her obviously trying to continue to understand, although he was not sure why. He explained it as succinctly as possible.

He found himself wondering once again if the human way was really just so different that K'Shai was having such difficulty understanding the nature of the Yautja. She then proceeded to begin to explain the Yautja culture in human terms that she could understand, although R'chnt found himself completely perplexed by what she explained.

"…So, the workers are pretty much the working class, and then the Elite hunters, like the ones who become Leaders and get their own ships are pretty much like millionaires. Which makes an Elder Leader like you, pretty much like a billionaire. Only instead of money, it's rank and status, and things like ships, right?"

She looked at him waiting for confirmation that her explanation was correct.

"K'Shai, I have no idea what you just said." R'chnt said concisely, drawing out a hearty laugh from her.

She soon departed the soaking tub and he joined her shortly after, clicking softly as she wrapped herself against him and shared her warmth with his in the comforts of the bed. K'Shai smelled his skin, freshly scented and clean from the long soak and pressed her eyes closed as she moaned and stretched in next to him, still trying to understand the complexities of the alien culture she was now living in.

At first glance, it seemed such a simple culture based mostly on survival of the fittest.

The hunters were the backbone of their clans. No clan, as L'ruch had said, could thrive without strong hunters, so the best hunters made for the fittest Clans. That much made sense to her, but there was so much more than that to the Yautja culture.

It was more complex than she ever really considered, but she was starting to get an understanding of just how deeply woven into the very fiber of the species their strength and power and aggressive nature was embedded.

The strongest have power over all the rest. Yet within that simplicity, there were subtle layers of separation that were rigidly observed, and it made K'Shai a little queasy as she began to understand further just how many of those strict values that R'chnt had spent four centuries diligently observing and adhering to with unquestioning devotion he disregarded and overrode when he allowed himself to mate with her.

Though she had been purposefully keeping herself inside the K'ojol and out of Neh'rti's sight, she started to begin to understand Neh'rti's attitude towards her and why it was all so _unusual_ of R'chnt, as everyone constantly used that word to describe their situation.

For days, K'Shai remained tucked away out of sight with R'chnt in private aboard the K'ojol. It was only after five rotations he had even begun to allow the 'aseigan back into the ship to bring them food, rather than leaving it just inside the door to the kehrite. Their isolation drove curiosity, and curiosity led to gossip.

Of course K'Shai understood the gossip chain, and it came as no surprise to her to learn that the Yautja's version of a grapevine worked equally as well, if not better than the Earthly version. By the time a week had passed according to her watch that was tucked away in a small pile of her Earth possessions she no longer really needed, she had become aware that every living Yautja had apparently learned of her presence, her pregnancy, and her acceptance into the Kaunte Dar'een clan, the single most powerful Clan of them all.

Every time she happened to be in a room with a view of the docking bay, she could not help but to notice that there always seemed to be some new gaggle of hunters or workers glancing over the ship, as if they were waiting to get a view of her. It made her a little nervous, though R'chnt seemed to be indifferent to their almost celebrity status. He assured her to disregard it all, sure that eventually it would pass.

The Clan itself, she learned had a long and rich history of powerful hunters, and R'chnt was not just a "lucky one" that managed to survive through four centuries of blood-filled hunting.

He was a well-bred example of a long heritage of powerful hunters on both sides. He had skill and grace and natural aptitude for weaponry bred right into him. He was more intelligent than she had realized, and while he did have obvious skills as a teacher and a diplomat, he maintained that the only thing that concerned him was the hunt.

Males paid particular attention to who their sires were, while females followed their maternal lineage instead. R'chnt proudly recalled his sire, his sire's sire, and back and back for ten generations, covering a spanse of over fifteen hundred Earth years, telling K'Shai stories of their hunts and their accomplishments and which trophies in the Clan city were of hunters in his lineage. He added in some of the hunts of his progeny, too.

"How many offspring do you have?" K'Shai asked, not so absentmindedly caressing her stomach.

"I have sired two-hundred-forty-seven…" he tipped his head towards her abdomen. "Two-hundred-forty-eight offspring."

That was a large number for her to process, and she took a moment to absorb the reality of Yautja reproduction.

"And you said males are just sires? You really don't have any contact with your offspring?"

"It is not in Yautja nature, K'Shai. We do not form permanent bonds and raise offspring together in mated pairs as you have described."

"But, then, how does the child know who its father is? How do you know who your own baby is?"

R'chnt stiffened slightly, tilting his head curiously at K'Shai and her questions of a perfectly natural existence. He supposed that as unusual as it sounded to him to raise offspring as a mated pair, it sounded equally as foreign to K'Shai for a mother to raise the offspring with other females.

"Offspring learn of their sire's bloodlines from the mother, and the mei'sa teachings. Only if an offspring does something of major significance might he cross paths with his sire at all, assuming his sire still lives." R'chnt explained.

K'Shai thought about it for a moment. If the sire goes off back to hunting after mating with a particular female, she supposed it made sense that he could be killed. This was the main reason females lived in a community and remained quite separated from males. Any male could be killed at any time. Long term bonds were not natural to the Yautja, nor were the emotions that prompted them.

Once bred, females turned to life inside the mei'sa, committing themselves to not only rearing their own offspring, but also assisting in raising others' children in a community environment where adult Blooded males were not welcome.

"What about your female offspring? Do you ever meet them?"

"Sometimes. They also learn of their bloodlines from the mei'sa mothers."

K'Shai eyed him widely, a thought crossing her mind that caused her alarm. "Do you mate within your own bloodlines?"

"No, K'Shai. Bloodlines are taught to us all. Mating within your own bloodlines is _eg'nyk_."

She looked at him quizzically, and he understood the gaze meant she did not understand the word. He thought about it more and clarified.

"Forbidden." He said.

"Oh. Well, that's good, I suppose. But you and I are going to raise this baby. I can't do it without you. It's just not how humans do things." K'Shai whispered. "The father just mating and leaving…."

She continued on. "No offense, but that's how animals do things."

R'chnt harrumphed deeply, spreading his mandibles in amusement.

"K'Shai! On my world, it is the animals that reproduce multiple times and remain in mated pairs. Higher life takes longer to grow, mature, and reproduce."

Stunned, and just a little embarrassed, she immediately regretted even bringing it up. To the humans, she considered, the Yautja seemed like animals- uncivilized, barbaric, and driven by a hormonal need to reproduce. To the Yautja, she realized, humans seemed exactly the same, and it was not the first time she had been compared to an animal.

For the Yautja, there was no marriage, no raising a family together, no family vacations, or scrapbooks, or posting photos online to share with extended family and friends.

There were no parents doting over their children to teach them to ride a bike or nurse a 'boo boo', or see them off to their first day of school, or fret over them when they got home too late from senior prom, or cry on their first day of college, or hold birthday parties.

There were no similarities at all between the Yautja way and common human customs, and K'Shai felt more than a little nauseus at the idea of such a distinctly separated existence. As she tried to process the way Yautja society worked, it just made her that much more sick to her stomach. R'chnt had just as hard of a time processing the way human society worked, of course.

It was the way R'chnt explained Yautja mating practices that suddenly made a confusing yet simplistic culture make sense. All the nuances of their society, the privileges and the pursuits of the upper castes, the drive, even the pressure to follow the Path of the Hunter, and the status of the workers, and certainly the 'aseigan, all boiled down to one, simple, biological function. Mating.

The Yautja culture truly followed a survival of the fittest plan. The strongest survived. The strongest thrived. The strongest reproduced.

As K'Shai pieced together the structure of Yautjan society based on all that R'chnt had said, despite how complex some of it was, it all came down to who was the best and most worthy of breeding. Females chose males that impressed them, as they would only ever breed once in their lives. Thus, the drive to be the best male, the strongest male, the most dominant, with the proudest kills, was powerful.

If any male hoped to breed with a female of a powerful lineage, a strong member of the clan with notable bloodlines, he would have to make certain he had hunted prey worthy of catching her attention and put on quite a public show to court her. With potentially deadly consequences, it was a surefire way to eliminate the lesser skilled Yautja and promote only the strongest bloodlines.

In the mei'sa, training of a Yautja offspring would begin from the time they were able to walk. Mothers would teach youngsters all that they would need to know about Yautja life, and then once they were of age, they would be placed with a Leader.

Males ready to undergo the final steps of training, the chiva, would be selected by a male Leader for that training. Juvenile females would be trained by female leaders, and Yautja genders, as far as K'Shai was coming to understand, lived quite separate lives.

After blooding, when a Yautja had earned their right to be part of the Clan, they also earned the right to breed, or at least attempt to breed. Unproven males were discouraged from breeding, either by other, stronger and more experienced males fighting them for the same female, or by the female themselves, challenging the males to prove their worthiness. It did a clan no good to breed incapable bloodlines.

Females, naturally more aggressive in nature, used their larger size and generally sour attitudes to keep unproven males at bay, spurring the males to fight bigger, harder, better, to prove themselves most worthy of breeding or die trying, and in that way, still bring honor to the Clan.

Males who heard the call of the hunter after surviving their chiva would continue on hunting, either under the guidance of a Leader to improve their rank further, or on their own, to risk death or success their own way. Females, in selecting a male that instigated her for breeding, would challenge the male's worthiness further.

As if their hunting skills, trophies upon display, scars, or status in the Clan were not proof enough, it was common for females to get into physical, and as R'chnt described, _public_ , altercations with suitors and males who found themselves outmatched by a larger, stronger, and moodier, not to mention unimpressed female, would often find themselves with broken bones or severed genitals, assuming they lived through the experience at all.

R'chnt had horrified K'Shai with details she had a hard time processing. He told her of his own injuries from mating; a broken arm, a severely severed thigh. Even more horrifying to her than his tales of being thrown, bleeding, and broken during intercourse, was the tone in his voice that displayed pride and enjoyment of those experiences. She could not imagine such a violent ritual over something that should be pleasant and full of thrilling sensations.

She began to realize why R'chnt seemed reluctant to be touched the way she touched him, at first, until he realized she was not going to attempt to hurt him. She had no idea that what she considered normal and arousing was probably intimidating and alarming to him, and as he explained more about Yautja mating, she realized he was probably showing massive self-restraint to mate with her as carefully and gently as he did. She was sure he liked it, yet she wondered if she was fulfilling enough for his natural instincts.

"I guess we really are very different species. I mean, humans are … well… just _different_." She repeated, unable to clarify further, but R'chnt none-the-less, wanting to understand more of her species, urged for a better explanation.

"I don't know. It's just difficult to really explain. We have all kinds of different beliefs, I suppose. Some people remain together in pairs, sometimes those pairs just don't work and they go their separate ways. It's difficult for the children when that happens. Some people believe in one thing, while other people believe in something entirely different. It makes us fight amogst each other."

"Yes, _wars_ you call them?" R'chnt nodded. "This I have seen of your world. Your history is full of violence."

K'Shai eyed R'chnt widely, a little flicker of anger welling up in her, but it was quickly snuffed out by the realization that he was actually right. The Yautja had incredible differences in beliefs but it became considerably harder for K'Shai to explain the varying views throughout her own planet.

Whereas most Yautja customs were fairly universal, even their language was universal, on Earth, as K'Shai tried to explained, everything was different everywhere, from state to state, country to country, people to people. There were almost no continuities, and K'Shai never really realized it until she tried to explain the culture of Earth to an alien. There was no "culture of Earth."

"Chaos." R'chnt said with a noticeable hint of detest. "How your people manage to thrive at all is incredible."

She had a hard time disagreeing with him. Yautja beliefs might be tough and include a questionable compassionless moral standing on murder, but it was an incredible thing for her to process that the Yautja Way was universal.

"So you are telling me your people have _never_ had a war? They've never fought for… territory or... over religion?"

"Why would the Yautja fight over the gods, K'Shai? There is only one Way. One Way we all share. Territories, yes, Yautja fight for territories every day, but wars like your world? Nothing. I have seen your wars. I did not realize they were as damaging to your world as you explain. It is _barbaric_."

K'Shai took a moment of silence to absorb the conversation. There was something gut-wrenching humbling and oddly ironic about being called barbaric by a member of a species who displayed skulls and spines on the walls in order to show off to gain a chance to reproduce, and yet everything R'chnt said made sense to her, his beliefs were unwavering and it all made her a little queasy.

"Wait," K'Shai paused, recollecting. "Yesterday you told me that the Kaunte Dar'een Clan earned its place as the strongest of all the clans by winning a great war. So you have had wars."

R'chnt nodded, although a bit dismissively.

"But it was not a war against other Yautja. As this Earth war has been a cause for Yautja to band together to fix a disgrace to the honor we all value, the Great Dar'een War was a time many eons ago when the Yautja banded together against a mortal enemy."

"Worse than the _kainde amedha_?" K'Shai questioned with surprise, certain nothing in the universe could possibly be worse than the _bugs_.

"They are animals, K'Shai. _Tarei'hsan_ ," R'chnt said smoothly, dismissing the hard meat as little more than beetles, despite the horrific wounds he had endured. "There are things far more deadly."

"Tell me."

She had yet to learn the full history of the Clan to which she now belonged, but R'chnt had told her it was a strong, proud, and rich Clan that had achieved its great status after a war.

She did learn that the words _Kaunte Dar'een_ translated essentially to white dragon, although the Yautja meaning of dragon was not the giant fire-breathing winged reptile of human lore, rather, it was more like a demon.

She listened intently, still cross-legged on the floor in the temple, as she retrieved another fruit from a bowl next to her and peeled it while R'chnt started telling the story of his Clan.

"It was over five thousand generations ago, more than fifty thousand Earth years, K'Shai. The Yautja people were not as advanced then as we are now. We were a strong and proud people, though, even then," he assured carefully, not trying to imply that the Yautja were ever weak or poorly developed.

"We did not travel the stars, but others did. Others found _us_. They were the kaunte dar'een. They arrived slowly, coming to our world in large ships, bringing us new revelations of the universe that we had never known.

We too, at one point, had no idea there was life beyond Yaut. The kaunte dar'een promised my ancestors a chance to travel the stars, to learn. They taught our people how to improve weapons, engineer ships, but they did so by enslaving the Yautja.

They took many off world, never to be seen again. Stories were told of horrific experiments, mutilations. The kaunte dar'een were vicious and dangerous. They tortured Yautja for centuries. Our people slowly banded together against the great enemy and the war began.

For one thousand years, our race, nearly killed off completely by the terrible tortures of the kaunte dar'een, fought against them. The war was led by a powerful hunter, who also had skin as pale as the kaunte dar'een themselves.

He fought against them his entire life, following the path of many others who had died trying to defeat the brutal enemy. He banded our entire people together. He led the Yautja to the greatest victory we have ever known.

We had learned so much from hundreds of years as slaves to make their ships. We took control. Used all that we had learned to destroy them."

K'Shai tried to imagine a species capable of enslaving the Yautja. Her mind filled up with images of a great battle against a white demon and as she processed what she was being told as best as she could, she asked him in a light whisper, "The Yautja destroyed their entire race?"

R'chnt nodded.

"I suppose it is possible some escaped the slaughter, but our people were determined. They secured a place in the universe for the entire rest of eternity. The Yautja are the strongest, the best. We destroyed the ones who tried to destroy us and none has ever challenged our existence again.

Yautja die. That is a truth of life, but we follow the Path before us with honor. We will never be overruled by another race again. We would rather kill ourselves than be captured."

K'Shai nodded with wide, acknowledging eyes. She had seen the after-effects of what an incapacitated Yautja would do with a self-destruct mechanism embedded into the computer panel of the _awu'asa._ It assured that _nothing_ would survive. She had never realized why the hunters would destroy themselves and all around them, but now, their actions made more sense.

When K'Shai and R'chnt were not engrossed in the history and religion of the Yautja life inside the temple, they spent the other portion of their days hidden away on the K'ojol working slowly through sparring techniques.

While R'chnt was a patient and methodical teacher of Yautja texts, K'Shai could tell that his strongest forte was certainly from within the kehrite. At first, they utilized the personal training space in his chambers, but as he grew stronger, they utilized the main kehrite in the ship for their training sessions.

Between text book education and foundation exercises for the sparring training K'Shai would eventually begin, she and R'chnt kept their days full of activity. They ate, drank, soaked and slept, and R'chnt gradually used less and less pain killers and grew stronger as each new rotation passed.

He guided K'Shai through slow paces of training exercises and performed the moves himself as he began to carefully find his strength, figuring out how to move and compensate for the missing or heavily damaged muscles in his abdomen that no longer worked the way he expected them to.

Each day consisted of routines of particular formations, holding stances, building stamina and performing slow motioned maneuvers.

He began to teach her how to stand, how to move, how to circle and sway her way around the kehrite. He would guide her by his own motions or sometimes press his body against hers, sliding his hands across her frame as he physically directed her in certain postures while she took in his soothing warmth and scent.

K'Shai found the similarities between the motions he was teaching her and Yoga or Tai Chi quite astounding. Though she was not terribly familiar with either, the basis behind the methods was the same, as far as she knew.

As the days passed, she could not help but notice how R'chnt sheltered his injured side from some of the exertions as he positioned himself, though she dared not say anything. It was obvious enough that he was having a hard time dealing with being incapacitated and he had only refrained from running off to certain death to prove how strong he was because of her imploring request.

She shifted her weight and balanced herself, trying to hold the positions he directed her into rather cumbersomely, but slowly as she figured out how to hold her body and work the muscles necessary for each position, it became easier.

Likewise, she did notice that R'chnt was doing much of the same; rebuilding his body and reconditioning muscles to compensate for damaged ones. Whatever he directed her to do, he did himself, and the two worked in mirror unison.

R'chnt had noticed how attuned to his actions she was as he began teaching her. It was a quality he noticed in her from the very first time he saw her.

She paid closer attention to his every action, and tried to mimic them at first sight, than some of his Yautja students over the years had. She learned without him speaking or touching her, and was readily receptive to his direct touch when needed.

She was actively trying to absorb all that he could show her and though he knew she lacked quality training or skills in physical combat, it was clear she was ready, willing, and amply able to learn.

He watched her as she shifted her small body into motions unfamiliar to it and pridefully noted how she remained quietly determined to correct errors and master what he was trying to teach her. Although her efforts were sometimes overdone; her eagerness to improve actually resulting in more errors, he began to understand more of how she learned and what her mannerisms were.

Like with the spear hunting he taught her, he noticed during the quiet and slow training sessions in the kehrite, that K'Shai seemed to expect the moves to come to her immediately, and she would quickly agitated if she lost balance or struggled with a certain maneuver. He reminded her again and again for patience, telling her that her development would take years, not days.

He had already planned out lessons for her well into the future; shaping up her training over the next few decades in his mind, while she seemed intent on mastering moves in hours. She reminded him just a little too much of young Yautja in that regard. It seemed to him that one commonality between the two species was the impatience of youth.

" _Hul'tin-de,"_ he would remind her to focus as her position lapsed.

"Your mind, your body, K'Shai. Channel and focus them into the motion. Be patient. It will come with time."

The exercises were slow and performing them was exhausting, especially considering he would often have her hold certain positions for extended periods of time. She could feel her muscles fatiguing just trying to hold still, and on this particular day, the bustling of the 'aseigan striding through the ship with tools and equipment kept drawing her attention away.

"What are they doing, R'chnt? It sounds like they're taking the ship apart."

For hours, K'Shai and R'chnt had been working on _kv'var_ while the 'aseigan were apparently working on the ship. There were metal on metal banging sounds and whirring noises that had gone on almost the whole time they were in the _kehrite_ and an almost endless parade of 'aseigan hurrying through the ship, trying to get past R'chnt as quickly as possible.

K'Shai couldn't help but notice how he kept her positioned on the farthest side of the room away from the slaves headed back and forth. He remained suspiciously quiet on the matter, telling her only that she would see what they were doing soon enough.

Working in the heat of the vessel for as long as they had, K'Shai was exhausted, pasted in sweat, and hungry when he finally stopped her, not too long after the last 'aseigan headed out, closing the exit door behind him as he left.

They exited the kehrite and returned to his chambers and K'Shai looked around, certain that by all the banging and apparent welding they were doing, judging by the equipment they had carried back and forth, his chambers had undergone some kind of major makeover.

She curiously glanced around, then to him looking for more answers, because nothing looked different, or maybe she just was not noticing anything because she was too hot and tired to perceive it.

She headed towards the bathroom, passing a tray stuffed with food that had been placed on a table in the living room and picked up some fruit first, stripping off her sweaty leather garments with the fruit locked between her jaws, as R'chnt moved in behind her, likewise undressing. When she turned into the bathroom, she noticed the difference there.

The bathroom had been redone; a new seating ledge had been installed in the soaking tub so she could sit without submerging and two additional shower heads were installed on the opposite wall, both just about a foot above her head and on an extendable cord. Something else caught her attention, too. There was an additional water control handled installed right near the other one.

Yautja existed in one temperature zone and only one – _hot_.

The Clan ship was hot and dry, like a desert. Some of the rooms accumulated humidity and felt more like a sauna; especially the bath houses. R'chnt's ship was in a constant state of hot-as-an-oven and clearly he basked in it.

Even the bath and shower water was hot. The water control had one purpose- to turn water on and off. There was no turning the knob just right to make it a little cooler or a little hotter. The water was always hot. The soaking tubs were hot. The ship itself was hot. Everything was hot.

K'Shai eyed the secondary control panel and curiously looked at R'chnt who had said nothing, letting her discover the modifications on her own. She pressed the panel and the water in her own, lower shower heads popped on.

"OH!" She exclaimed with a brimming smile. "You had cold water run into the ship! Ooooohhhh!"

She moaned in absolute delight as the cool water ran over her head and down her body, rinsing away the sweat and cooling her body. R'chnt watched her with a curious expression as she took ecstatic pleasure in the feeling of the water. He moved in behind her and allowed the water from one of the shower heads to pelt against his chest for several moments.

"How you can enjoy such frigid water, I cannot understand."

"Frigid?!" K'Shai chuckled through her glee. "This is _perfect_. Thank you so much!"

The cool water felt wonderful against her skin. She couldn't help but feel amused by R'chnt's comments.

She supposed, as she quietly thought about it while basking under its flow, that for the Yautja who thrived in ambient temperatures in excess of one hundred-ten as the Farenheit scale she was familiar with measured, she imagined how her need for cooler temperatures could seem cold to him.

Yautja need the heat; they thrived in it. Humans needed to remain cool in order to thrive best. The Yautja had a higher body temperature, and preferred basking-heat type conditions.

She imagined to the Yautja, the difference in temperatures that she preferred would be a little like taking one of those arctic polar bear plunges that she had heard about, jumping into frigid water to prove how daring a person could be. It seemed a little strange to her that a Yautja might consider her version of normal water "daring", but R'chnt clearly took no pleasure in exposing his body to the cool water for too long.

He moved away and sunk into his hot pool, watching her lather and stroke her body and hair with a pleasured smile on her face. K'Shai, relaxed and cooled returned to the bed and dozed off while R'chnt finished soaking in his hot bath before he joined her, laying next to her with her soft body pressed against his, the scent of her wafting into him as she relaxed against him.

He caressed her smooth skin and she cood a little in response and shifted closer into him, letting him caress her. Her body emanated familiar scents of the Yautja bathing soaps and lotions she preferred, and her pregnancy added to the Yautja-esque scent that filled his nasal passages and aroused him as his chest rumbled into a purr while they lay in the warmth of the bed sheets.

He found it difficult to restrain himself from mating with her, pleasuring himself in her warm tract the way he wanted to. K'Shai seemed to know that he was not strong enough for such exertions, but it did not seem to bother her. She turned into him and caressed him, encouraging him to relax, rubbing her hands over him, massaging him into both suppleness and stiffness all at the same time.

She used her tongue and lips and hands to soothe his body and stimulate his erection. As if she was rewarding him for remaining in the ship and recuperating, she would thrill his body in this way twice a day, locking her lips over his shaft, grappling and pumping and sucking until he exploded into her as he lay on the bed or stood above her in the shower.

Installing the cool water for her brought her pleasure and she returned the favor by pleasuring him twice that night. She had an amazing ability to ensure that he was too fully relaxed to stand up for quite some time afterwards, forcing him to remain restful and distracted by her pleasuring touch.

He was grateful for the stimulation and release and the lingering feelings of ecstasy she could create in him and K'Shai quickly taught him that not only could she satisfy him without mating, but that he could also bring her pleasure in much the same way.

Once she showed him what to do to elicit such ecstasy in her without penetration, R'chnt offered it to her again and again, arousing himself as he pleasured her and getting the favor returned by her lips over him. It was a sensation he enjoyed tremendously, and it was clear by her heightened response to him that she also found his stimulation of her with his hand equally as enjoyable.


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

As his stamina returned the following morning, R'chnt continued his own sparring training while K'Shai slept off her ectsasy.

She was worn out from several rounds of pleasuring him as he worked his hands against her and made her shriek in delight as well. Allowing her to sleep in quiet peace, fully relaxed, he had slipped to the _kehrite_ to continue some _kv'var_ on his own, her scent still lingering on his hands and body, keeping him company as he moved about with a training staff tucked under his arm.

Movement from the external door caught his attention and an old friend entered the ship.

"R'chnt!" K'tor-de greeted him with a deep bow. "I heard you were aboard ship!"

R'chnt greeted his friend, recollecting that it had been some time since they had seen each other and R'chnt was sure he was dead. K'tor-de caught him up on the last hundred years of what he had been up to, while R'chnt watched him glance around the ship from time to time, clearly hoping to see _his human_ , as K'tor-de called her unit R'chnt growl an annoyed correction, repeating her name once again.

"Clearly, I have done nothing of interest compared to you," he finished, quite aware of the alien scent emanating from R'chnt's body.

"There is much talk of you and your _ooman_ mate. I have been told she is in child, and has been Blooded into the Clan." K'tor-de rumbled heartily.

"I thought it was a joke, but once I returned to the ship and heard the stories… I can barely believe it. I can smell her scent on you now. You mate with her while she is bred. How _unusual_."

R'chnt shifted his stance and spread his tusks, sending a flaring warning to K'tor-de not to get any ideas and to contain his curiosity and stimulation behind his loin cloth as he circled him just enough to intimidate him. K'tor-de took the silent warning to heart and shifted position just enough to submit to R'chnt and change the subject quickly, bringing up instead one of the rumors he heard about K'Shai that had transpired in the cantina a few days ago.

He had heard about the incident from someone else who heard it from another that was there; what K'Shai called the _grapevine_. R'chnt listened to K'tor-de inform him fourth-handedly about what had transpired, and was not pleased to know that a simple 'aseigan dared balk at a command given to him by a Blooded.

He tried for a moment to figure out why K'Shai hadn't mentioned it. Perhaps she did not realize it was as large of a problem as it could be, or perhaps she did and was attempting not to upset him.

It mattered not that K'Shai was human, 'aseigan must obey the Blooded, and K'Shai bore the mark of the clan without question. That was the way. R'chnt growled as he thought aloud.

"I would like to find out who that was. He will never have trouble obeying an order again."

K'tor-de nodded in agreement then added, "Well, as I was told, K'Shai stared that 'aseigan down. She did not budge. Strong little thing; your human, so I hear. Dominant as a female should be. Impressive. Saruch-de was there and apparently aided K'Shai in getting the 'aseigan to pay attention. Chased away some youngbloods too, as I heard. They found the situation very amusing."

R'chnt grumbled even more deeply; further displeased that it was another Blooded hunter, and not him, who had intervened to assist K'Shai, though he was pleased to hear K'Shai being referred to as impressively strong, dominant, and unbudging. Clearly there was still some question amongst the 'aseigan about K'Shai's status and he would make sure to clarify that in any way he needed.

He was alarmed by the fact that another hunter saw fit to step in on her behalf, however, and suddenly realized the problem was more multi-faceted than he first anticipated.

"No one has seen her out since then. Are you keeping here purposefully?" K'tor-de asked curiously. "Perhaps mating with her so much she can't walk? Is it _really_ true that she _allows you_ to continue to mate with her, or do you dominate her by force?"

His eyes diverted suddenly and R'chnt turned.

K'Shai couldn't help but notice the wide eyed stare down she received from the elder visitor as he caught sight of her, though she supposed it was something she would have to get accustomed to. She hadn't quite heard what the topic of discussion was about, but she was absolutely certain it was something to do with her and mating.

She eyed R'chnt curiously, wondering if she needed to be concerned by the male's presence, but instead R'chnt introduced them, though he kept himself positioned between them, ensuring the other elder would not come into physical contact with her.

With a comment from the K'tor-de about R'chnt's notable absence from the business on the Clan ship for the last few days, K'Shai was hardly surprised when he did don some armor and guide her out into the ship a few hours later. He was obviously feeling stronger, she had noticed, and she could not imagine what harm there would be in heading out to the cantina for food. It felt good to get off the hunt ship anyway, especially in his company.

Though the ambient temperature in the hunt ship was as hot as the Clan ship, at least there was more air flow and larger ceilings in the _jag'd'atoll_ , so K'Shai felt somewhat cooler.

R'chnt took another circumvented route to the cantina, she couldn't help but notice. She assumed he was purposefully putting her on display as he had before, and the Clan ship was actually somewhat busier this time, with more supply runners hurrying about and a few larger groups of injured hunters returned for medical attention.

He did stop for a moment at yet another lower level that she had not been to before, to have a discussion with one Yautja while K'Shai gazed in wonder around her.

She watched dozens and dozens of 'aseigan going about their tasks in the lowest level of the Clan ship, suddenly opening up a world to her that K'Shai never even considered.

Most of the Yautja she saw were thin and much smaller framed than the even the worker cast. Some looked battered and bruised, with injuries that looked work related, but some of them appeared to have been physically whipped or beaten.

They were all male and she idly wondered where the female 'aseigan were, or _if_ there were female 'aseigan at all. None of the 'aseigan bore the Blooded mark on their heads, and she knew it was because they were ones who had never performed well enough to even make it to their chiva.

K'Shai knew very little about the life of a young Yautja, but it was most definitely something she knew she needed to learn more about. The growing infant in her womb, just shy of a month old already, was getting bigger every day.

She didn't "feel" pregnant, but she also had never been before, so she had no idea what it meant to feel pregnant. She assumed she would feel the baby moving around like a little worm inside her, but she did not. R'chnt would lay with her, watching his offspring inside her and he would tell her when the fetus would kick and flail its miniscule legs and arms, but K'Shai could not feel it.

She knew it was common for women to experience morning sickness, but the only thing she felt was stronger and more energized. That could also have been because of the change in her diet, she thought.

She had gone from getting by on canned soups, fruit cocktails, and the occasional fresh kill of a squirrel, pigeon, or any other animal her group could find, to a steady supply of potently nutritious fruits and high protein meats fit enough to fuel the demanding physical needs of the aliens around her.

Still, before she began eating as well as she now was, she had already begun feeling the effects of the Yautja genetics blooming in her, intimately connected to her body and blood. She presumed that such strength was something the Yautja took for granted and relied on as a way of life, but for her, it was a new experience.

She only hoped that her child would grow strong, fit, and well, and reflect upon her sire the way his people expected.

It caused her fear to know that she was operating under a looming threat of death by Neh'rti, and filled her with alarm that she was directly affecting R'chnt's own status, and of course, the well-being of her child.

As K'Shai watched the 'aseigan working, she tried to imagine what had happened to them that caused them to fall to such a status.

Any Yautja had the same chances, the same right, to secure their place in the clan. As L'ruch had once put it " _all_ " that needed to be done to earn that place, was to survive chiva. She presumed that there was quite a bit involved in _surviving_ chiva, despite how dismissively L'ruch had explained it, though it was hard for her to imagine what exactly it entailed.

Surely, youngsters were carefully taught by their mothers and eventually by the Leaders that would Blood them, yet she knew as 'aseigan, these Yautja were not even able to escalate that far into society; they never were given the chance.

She did not understand why, but she watched a few of them, as the massive gray-skinned elder some dozen feet behind her talked to their overseer, who he towered over, cast glaring gazes towards her when they thought neither was looking.

They looked at her with the same fire that she had seen in the eyes of the hunters she was slowly getting more acclimated with. The gazes she spied were almost _angry,_ and K'Shai could feel the skin on the back of her neck bristle in apprehension.

She was alien, and yet, she suddenly realized that she was actually granted higher status and more privileges than the Yautja before her. She was _Blooded,_ a privelage none of the 'aseigan were given.Just as she had come to the point of feeling very uncomfortable amongst the loin-cloth clad slaves bringing carts of food, carrying weapons, trophies, and supplies, back and forth on their chores, R'chnt moved in behind her and caught her attention.

"Come, K'Shai." He said, drawing her out of her thoughts, away from her fears.

She did not know what business he had with the overseer of the 'aseigan, she had not even asked, and tuned out of the conversation so quickly, she did not hear. R'chnt guided her back to the lift and started her down several corridors that would lead, in the most roundabout way possible, to the cantina.

The fact that K'Shai knew he was taking the "long cuts" to their destination made her realize that she was learning her way around the ship well enough to know the difference, and it suddenly occurred to her that whether or not his intention was to put her on display, to allow as many Yautja as possible to see her and become comfortable with her presence, he was also teaching her to navigate the massive vessel.

That was probably a very good thing, she thought, because the ship was big enough she could easily get lost in it, and likely never be seen again; especially if she ended up in a lower level amongst the glaring 'aseigan.

Despite how busy the rest of the ship was, the cantina was quite empty and K'Shai and R'chnt sat together for hours, talking quietly until they were eventually joined by two elders, including K'tor-de. A short while later, K'Shai looked up and noticed that the one-eyed hunter had entered as well, his limp slowly getting better, and the wounds over his head healing well.

R'chnt acknowledged him and Saruch-de returned the gesture, both noticing that K'Shai shot him a wide-eyed look. R'chnt would have to speak to Saruch-de further. As far as he knew, Saruch-de had never even been to Earth before this war.

He had never hunted humans, and was no doubt thrown off by her presence on the Clan ship. The way he looked at her caused R'chnt to flare his tusks, but there was a time and place for everything. R'chnt would keep a careful eye on the situation.

Following the limping, half blind hunter, just a few seconds after, three females entered and K'Shai watched them for a moment, wondering if they might acknowledge her. When they did, she switched tables and introduced herself to them. Of course they knew exactly who she was, and while she was sure she had seen at least two of them in the mei'sa, she did not know their names.

K'Shai was pleasantly surprised to find that the three females, low ranked, but still well-bred, were curious about her. S'ridi appeared and joined them in discussion, and K'Shai slowly felt more comfortable amongst the small group of females as time passed. They talked for a long while over their food while R'chnt relaxed at a table a few dozen feet away with two other elders.

"She is making quite a place for herself, R'chnt." One of them said as they all glanced towards K'Shai, chatting away with Blooded females.

"I hear many hunters talk of her with interest." K'tore-de said.

"Which hunters? What _kind_ of interest?" R'chnt barked with a growl.

"Impressed. Many are impressed." K'tor-de added quickly, trying not to imply any other kind of interest, and hoping he was doing a sufficient job at stifling his own curiosity while the entire time, a lingering though on her mind of what it would be like to mate with her aroused him.

"Some of course are very surprised that you brought her here." K'tor-de continued, trying to deflect the conversation further.

"Yes, I have heard all the talk. I have lost my mind." R'chnt dismissed. "She is incredibly unique. K'Shai has proven herself to me and she is proving herself to the Clan every day."

"And you mate with her many times, so strange. I think perhaps you are wiser than most," the other elder said with a chuckle which earned a flared-tusk silent glare from R'chnt.

"Why have you not marked her?" K'tor-de asked casually, since the subject was brought up.

R'chnt grumbled. He had quite purposefully ensured that he hadn't washed her scent off him or his off of her, before they headed out to the Clan ship. He was feeling stronger, _strong enough_ , anyway, and as he aroused K'Shai into pleasure and she knelt over him, beginning to drip with powerfully enticingly scented wetness, he shifted his position out from under her and stood on the floor next to his bed, grabbing her hips firmly and guiding her where he wanted her.

He growled a deep rumble as he felt her wetness slide over his hard shaft while he worked himself slowly, deeply, inside her. K'Shai moaned and delighted in the sensations she had been clearly missing.

She gripped the sheets between her tensing fists and hung her jaw as she panted and closed her eyes, feeling his rod slide back and forth deep inside her. She shifted her thighs, opening herself up for him more and he accepted her invitation by intensifying his pumping, thrusting his hips briskly and withdrawing with pleasured growls as he pumped himself into a working rhythm, rippling both of their bodies with surging flows of ecstasy.

He had filled her up with his scent, pressing his heated and sweaty abdomen into her back as he crunched himself down against her with his final thrusts, growling in her ear as he did so. He held her under him, emptying himself fully into her as she moaned and panted and groaned below him, trembling from the rush of sensation that he elicited in her.

He rubbed her entire body with his hands, groping her breasts, making her bellow hoarsely as her voice left her completely, and finally running his hands between her legs after he withdrew, covering himself in her scent as completely as she was bathed in his.

He laid with her, resting comfortably for a while longer in the basking warmth of his chambers as she slept off her ecstasy and awoke hungry, which was perfectly in line with his intentions to bring her out into the _jag'd'atoll_. She usually burned up an appetite after mating.

He aided her in dressing, but had stopped her from cleaning up before they headed out, just as he refrained from taking a shower after the exertion. He had her well lathered in his musk, and he wore hers as a silent message of their unique situation.

Although she was obviously bred, he had continued to resist puncturing her skin with his tusks. He would mark her, but for now, pridefully watched her display herself, bathed in his scent, as she solidified her place as a Blooded member of the Clan.

"In time," R'chnt said dismissively without further explanation.

"Very unusual." K'tor-de mumbled.

"I have my reasons…" R'chnt growled again, firmly ending the conversation.

He did not want to imply that she was too weak or fragile to bite into, nor did he want to make it seem as if he had softened so much over _his human_ , as they continued to call her, that he had lost his dominant drive. He had his reasons for not marking her, and that was all they needed to know.

They continued on, avoiding subjects that had to do with mating with K'Shai entirely, although they discussed her and the rumors they had heard of her. Whether the discussion was about her actions on Earth, her unusual attachment to R'chnt, or her behavior when alone on the ship or in the company of the females, one thing was certain to him; K'Shai was was securing her place a little more every day.

Although it had only been a week and she had spent most of it tucked away on the K'ojol, expressing her uncertainty about Neh'rti wanting to kill her, R'chnt knew that whatever she thought she was doing wrong was actually helping her secure her place without her even realizing it.

He thought about how she had said to him that everything with the Yautja seemed _backwards_ to her, and as he discussed her in some light detail with the other two elders, he could not help but find amusement in the irony that she was solidifying her place as a female Yautja by doing the very things she was sure would get her killed. He had once assured her that there was nothing she would do to cause him disgrace or dishonor and now he was more certain of that than ever; she was settling in well and slowly being accepted.

He realized that it was good that he had kept her hidden away for the last several rotations. The curiosity stories flew around prolifically and it built curiosity. By the time he saw fit to bring her back out into the atoll, _everyone_ knew who she was whether or not they had ever seen her, and they all knew she was _his_. He had accomplished exactly the message he wished without actually doing anything, and with all the focus on the alien and the unusual situation, it also created a perfect veil to allow him to recover without drawing any question of his strength after his injury.

He knew K'Shai was apprehensive of Neh'rti, and fearful that despite his assurance, she might still bring death or dishonor to him, to her, to the offspring growing within her. He tried to figure out how she could not realize she was creating her place in just the right way as she went about her business, but he decided the best approach was to simply sit, wait, drink, eat and let K'Shai work it out on her own.

He was in no hurry to draw her away from the table of females, and every time a new hunter or worker or 'aseigan entered the room, the display K'Shai was making for herself drew their attention. She was engaged in her conversation with four other females, oblivious to the comings and goings of the males around her, exactly as females behaved.

Every time she was out in full view of the others, every time she was seen walking around in the company of Neh'rti or any other female, every time she commanded an 'aseigan to bring her something, or personally visit a worker to retrieve lotions or whatever else she desired, she was securing her position more and more. R'chnt realized it would probably not be much longer before she felt comfortable enough to be without him completely, and he could return to the hunt.

"From what I heard, Saruch-de saw it all and assisted!" K'tor-de chortled and nodded to Saruch-de who had been sitting across from them for some time as the conversation returned to discussing the events from earlier in the week.

Drawn into the conversation, Saruch-de turned and nodded. R'chnt did not want to pursue the subject with him now, but since it had come up, he turned to Saruch-de. Before R'chnt could speak, Saruch-de rumbled to them.

"K'Shai is quite strong. She is an interesting creature."

"Have you ever seen a human before this war, Saruch-de?" One of the elders asked.

R'chnt listened, catching a tone in Saruch-de's voice that made him deflate from the thought of flaring out, threatening him to stay away from her. There was something about the way he spoke of K'Shai that he could not quite identify. It was not a threatening tone, or a disgusted tone; it wasn't even a curious tone, despite his words. He spoke like he was reminiscing; reliving a proud moment of his past.

"No." Saruch-de informed. "I have never hunted humans."

R'chnt, perhaps, was the only one who caught on that Saruch-de had not answered the question asked. The other two continued their conversation but R'chnt tuned them out and directed the same question another way to Saruch-de.

"Have you ever been Earth before?"

Saruch-de shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. Though the move was subtle, R'chnt definitely caught the change in his scent. R'chnt had a definite suspicion that he was trying to avoid the subject completely.

"Once." He said briskly. "My ship crashed. I ended up not hunting, repaired the vessel and left."

The others seemed content with the response, but there was something R'chnt caught in his tone that perhaps only he could recognize, because it was a _human_ way.

Whenever K'Shai had something more on her mind than she was unwilling to directly say, he noticed how she spoke in short tones, quick words, like she was purposefully and carefully thinking up her responses so she could avoid saying what she really wanted to.

He had learned to gauge her carefully, and could usually fill in the holes she was dancing around. It was a frustrating and cryptic way to avoid direct conversation.

R'chnt preferred direct and absolute conversation, but he had caught the same mannerisms as K'Shai in Saruch-de's words and actions, right down to shifting his gaze away, looking rather overly concerned with how the food on his platter looked and then managed to excuse himself respectfully as his communication panel lit up, almost seeming relieved, R'chnt was certain there was something more behind _that_ story.

As Saruch-de headed out, W'rsa strode in and R'chnt rose and greeted him. They clamped their large hands to the opposite's shoulder; a gesture of greeting amongst respected Hunters. K'Shai stepped away from her conversation with the females as well, greeting W'rsa warmly, but also warily, casting R'chnt a gaze that obviously reflected she was thinking he was going to return to Earth with him.

"I heard you lived," W'rsa said, with no indication either way as to whether that news pleased him or not. "I returned for supplies and to inform you of the progress of the hunt."

The males returned to their seats and K'Shai dismissed herself from the females, who were about to depart to the bath anyway. She joined R'chnt, gluing herself next to him as she eyed W'rsa intently.

"What is happening on Earth, W'rsa?" K'Shai asked eagerly. "Have you seen my friends at all? Do you know if they are well?"

W'rsa ticked his upper tusks briskly and spread them lightly, into a small smile.

"We have not been in that area since we parted ways with your group, K'Shai. It is cleared out and safe, so I imagine your friends are as well." He informed her with a deep bow.

W'rsa was a towering Yautja with a formidable way about him. His prominent lower mandibles were freshly sprouted with additional tusk protrusions along their sides; a sign of a well-matured Yautja, but his color was still bold and brightly patterned in rusty reds and deep browns that streaked across his pale base coloring like tiger stripes. He was also possessed of a growing wisdom that matched his powerfully maturing body; a sure sign that he was R'chnt's apprentice.

She listened to the rest of the conversation as he continued on. For the most part, it was all similar news; destruction of hives, sizes of queens, numbers of the hordes, who had lived and how others had died. The Yautja were no longer overseeing any human groups and K'Shai was sure that her friends were safe and protected in the city of New Haven.

W'rsa himself confirmed that more and more areas were becoming so fully cleared of hives for so many miles that there had been almost no contact with any humans by the three groups he was working in conjunction through their area.

"The areas we move past fill in with indeginous life, K'Shai," W'rsa and some of the others discussed as she questioned them for more clarification. "We are seeing less humans, not because they are dying off, but because they are moving into the areas we leave behind clear."

"Well, that's very good news," K'Shai said. "Maybe this war will be over soon." She turned to R'chnt, with a hopeful chime in her voice that implied that she was hoping the war would end before he returned to the planet's surface.

He glanced to her, but said nothing. He merely clamped a hand warmly onto her bare thigh.

"Perhaps the end is near, but it will still be many rotations." W'rsa informed her, which was enough to cause her to glare at him in apprehension.

"We shall be victorious, though!" Another elder barked proudly, slamming his fist on the table so loudly it drew the attention of everyone in the room. "We will prevail!"

He growled rousingly, and everyone in the room howled out an echo; a proud bellow, with mugs of drink or bare fists raised to reinforce that they all shared the certainty of their impending victory.

"The ships were able to destroy three major hives completely. We cleaned up what was left, and have moved on."

"The ships?" K'Shai questioned and R'chnt tipped his head towards her.

"The main cannon," W'rsa clarified simply.

K'Shai eyed him blankly for a moment. "The ship can fire at Earth?"

"Of course." R'chnt said with a nod.

K'Shai felt the hairs on the back of her neck bristle. She never even imagined there was an aerial bombardement happening.

"When the hives are too large, or too deep under ground, the ships dispose of them, and we move in to destroy anything that is left, K'Shai. Did you not know this?" W'rsa added.

"I ...," K'Shai paused. "No. I guess I didn't."

As the conversation continued and she listened to the group around her discuss more details of their experiences, she began to realize there was so much going on on her own planet or in the space around it that she was not aware of.

Still, the Yautja maintained that they were headed to victory. R'chnt continued on his display, ensuring that everyone who entered and left the cantina, in ebbing waves of numbers, would see her and catch her scent in the air. He watched her, and their surroundings, warily every time she got up to get more food or drink, but as long as everyone stayed well enough away, he did not intervene.

When he did stand and join her once, he glared around, ensuring the younger hunters moved well away from both of them as he stayed close to her.

He caressed her from time to time, quite obviously, in full view of all in the room. He nudged himself into her body as they walked back and forth from the buffet area to the sitting table and he cradled his arm around her as they sat. K'Shai leaned into him, placed her hands on his thigh or chest or shoulder and at various times during their conversations, R'chnt would lean back into her, inviting her to kiss his cheek or grope his tresses, drawing in curious stares.

K'Shai realized that's R'chnt's display of her was serving a purpose and conveying a message. They remained in the cantina for so many hours doing nothing more than sitting, eating, drinking, and talking, that she had started to fall asleep.

He was keeping her on display for as long as possible, to allow for as many to see as possible. K'Shai had a fleeting notion that R'chnt might very well simply put on a full show and mate with her in the middle of the cantina floor. She smiled at the thought, certain that even the Yautja were too modest for that sort of thing, but still amused herself with the idea of the display he was most definitely making of her.

While R'chnt clearly still had plenty of stamina left to sit through more rounds of drink and conversation, K'Shai was ready to return to their chambers. She had no real concept of time inside the ship and the rotation of Yautja days were not of the same duration as human days.

She had a watch, along with a few human garments and supplies that were on her body when she returned to the Clan ship, but it seemed pointless to check it just to know what time it was in Virginia. It barely mattered. The Yautja did not have an "8 to 5" schedule. They did what they needed to do when they needed to do it and they did not micro manage their time or plan their days according to rigid schedules.

Though they did have particular preferences in their rotation for when they prayed or sparred, their needs for food and rest were fairly limited, especially in comparison to a human.

Yautja only needed to eat and rest every other day by human standards, and though the amount of rest they required was much less than a human's, the amount of food they consumed was somewhere around four or five times the amount in a single sitting, which meant that Yautja spent a great deal of time in the several cantinas aboard the Clan ship, which were also segregated by caste.

R'chnt found it somewhat amusing that K'Shai preferred to have a fairly steady supply of food available to her that she could pick at throughout the day, while eating larger portions in a single sitting during certain intervals. He thought at first that she ate in such a way because she was trying to provide more nutrition to the growing fetus, but had questioned her curiously, with unhidden surprise when she explained human eating habits; as awkward to him as her sleeping habits, he had said.

As she leaned up against him, supporting herself on his shoulder while he continued on his conversation, he tipped his head against hers and wrapped an arm around her, emphasizing the public display of his affection towards her, their bond, and his right to handle her in a way that Yautja males could not handle Yautja females. He silently sent a message through his powerful arm snaked around her body that was nestled into his side, drawing quick and curious glances from spectators.

"They have all been coming to see your human," one of the elders pointed out as he looked from K'Shai lolling against R'chnt's shoulder to the cantina, which had been filling up as the hours passed.

"They know she is out and they all want to see. You've kept her hidden away for so many days, R'chnt, it is drawing much curiosity." K'tor-de said.

"Has it been so many days?" R'chnt added flatly, as if he was unaware. "She keeps me occupied. I hadn't noticed."

"Yes, the scent of just how occupied she keeps you is apparent." Another responded back to him with a chuckle.

R'chnt flared his tusks. K'Shai had, indeed, managed to keep him sexually subdued into recuperation. He realized that was certainly her point, and it worked well. He had no concern over the numbers of passing rotations.

He expected the level of curiosity they were experiencing, and was pleased that K'Shai was the spectacle she was; for it ensured that everyone would get the message he was conveying, and if they did not, he had other ways of making the message clear.

K'Shai seemed to have that kind of effect on him, especially as she stimulated him repeatedly in such a pleasing way. He realized that was most definitely her intention and it had worked so surprisingly well that their absence from the public eye had caused the _grapevine_ to rocket. She had explained to him what a grape vine actually was and although he could not understand the correlation between a fruit and the public rumor mill, the term still stuck in his head.

Finally, she had drifted a little too deeply into sleep and he swept his arm off of her, stroking his fingers gently through her long hair as he nudged her awake and stood with her to escort her back to his ship so she could rest.

"K'Shai, will you undergo the jut-cha'hal?" W'rsa asked of her.

She smiled as she stirred and stroked her long black hair for a moment as she shifted to stand and unconsciously ran her other hand through R'chnt's mid-back length mottled gray tresses, sliding her fingers over one of the many beaded adornments that had been fused, painfully, into the sensitive tissues of his living hair during a ceremony called the jut-cha'hal.

It was a proud ceremony for successfully Blooded Yautja who planned to continue as a hunter. With each new elevated rank in status, or each worthy new kill, ornate beads were added to a hunter's tresses in a public display. K'Shai had been told that hunters were expected to bear the painful procedure proudly and stoically, and at any hint of expressing pain, the beads would be removed and the process started over again until the hunter either passed out or endured it without flinching.

"I look forward to it. They're beautiful," she responded to W'rsa with a confident smile.

She decided to keep the fact that her hair had no such sensitivity to herself. R'chnt, getting the joke, chortled softly. He knew K'Shai would endure the jut-cha'hal with a quiet look of pleasure on her face; the same as she adopted any time he ran his fingers through her hair or stroked her scalp gently with his claws and she slipped into closed-eye relaxation, humming softly.

He imagined a large and utterly stunned crowd watching her receive the beads and amusedly wondered how long it would take for anyone to figure out she had no feeling to her fine hair strands.

As R'chnt stood and followed a short distance behind K'Shai while she headed out of the cantina, he nodded to W'rsa and only briefly paused to speak to him further for another moment when some resounding, teasing voices echoed up in laughter that caught his, and everyone else's, attention.

"Little _human_ , you could never endure the jut-cha'hal!" A young hunter burst out laughing.

K'Shai turned to glare at the young Yautja, immediately annoyed by the accusation. She recognized him instantly as the one who had been laughing at her command over the 'aseigan a full week's of rotations before. Apparenly, the supply runner was back and with quite easily the worst timing possible, the young blood dared to pipe up, trying to draw in a mocking spectacle.

The tall and muscle-bound youngster jumped up from his seat to the cackling of his friends who were clearly egging him on, and leapt over to her like a lion pouncing from a distance. In one flicker of a second, everything happened so quickly, K'Shai could barely follow the next series of events. He reached his red and yellow speckled-skinned hand towards her, made contact with her.

He had grabbed at her hair and pulled, clearly teasing her, but aggressively so. K'Shai yanked herself back in the same moment, withdrawing from the young one's approach and effectively whiplashing her neck as he clamped down on her, the two opposing forces knocking her off balance and causing her to drop to her knees.

What she was not able to process in the same moment was the entire room clearing out in a hurried circle and a tremendously well-coordinated series of gasps from everyone who pressed themselves into the wall, not wanting to retreat entirely, but definitely wanting to get out of the way of the massive beating that was about to take place.

They remained to watch, but gave a wide enough berth so as not to be confused as would-be challengers. R'chnt flared and roared with a deafening intensity as he charged forward, body slamming into the youngster who dared to touch K'Shai.

She heard his bellow and the slam of the two bodies somewhere above her and leapt back to her feet in alarm as R'chnt toppled the young hunter away from her.

R'chnt sidled laterally, back to her, facing off with the downed youngblood, who clearly immediately regretted his actions. He looked at R'chnt with a wild and wide stunned gaze, as if he simply had no idea R'chnt would react in such a way. It was not a male's job to protect a female, after all.

He turned to his friends and eyed them up, clearly looking for some kind of support. He received none as his cackling supporters had quieted and moved away to clear out plenty of space for the enraged elder before them.

R'chnt arched his back, spread his arms and bellowed out once again; a chant of _nan-de than-gaun._ The sound filled the room, the corridor beyond, likely the whole level. For a moment, everything seemed to stop as the two challengers squared off with one another. The bellow, K'Shai knew, was an absolute challenge to the death for a serious offense.

The youngster had made a deadly decision and was going to pay with his life. The public display he thought he may have to make with Saruch-de, it turned out instead fell on the shoulders of the cocky and disrespectful youngblood who made the mistake of thinking K'Shai was his to touch.

Had she been Yautja female, he never would have touched her, knowing full well it would likely mean his death in retaliation. As it was, and he clearly pointed out, K'Shai was not Yautja. She was not ready to take on a Blood hunter in self-defense and R'chnt was more than willing to make it clear to everyone looking on in the cantina now turned _kehrite_ , that physical contact with K'Shai on any level for any reason, unless _expressly_ authorized by him, meant death. The hurried escape of all who watched, and bowed heads and wary gazes casting back upon his young challenger told R'chnt the message was clear.

The youngster had been publically challenged by a superior ranked elder. He had only two choices; retreat and suffer the consequences that cowards who turned away from a fight would endure, or come at R'chnt and fight until one of them was dead.

Given that R'chnt's absence from business on the Clan ship had many people questioning why he was keeping himself and his alien mate so isolated, the challenge he bellowed out would be a display of his strength, power, and readiness to protect K'Shai, reinforcing his position and sealing her protection. It was an inevitable necessity and he knew sooner or later it would happen. He _was_ hoping it would take a bit longer before he had to make such a display, but none the less, when the moment came, he bellowed his readiness.

Several females in the room beckoned in other females and they formed a blockade at the door, ensuring that the youngster, who dared to touch a Blooded and _bred_ female, would not leave the cantina alive, whether or not R'chnt was capable of finishing him, though they stayed out of his way.

K'Shai watched as spectators now trapped in the oval room by the unmoving wall of females blocking the only entrance door pressed themselves against the wall to give every inch of available space to the two fighters as they growled and howled their cheers and calls.

R'chnt powered forward as the youngster, looking rather reluctant to get up, took to his feet and tried to fend himself from the enraged elder. As their two bodies collided again, with K'Shai standing somewhere between the two of them and the line-up of females, she decided she would have felt more comfortable standing naked between the tracks of two speeding trains.

R'chnt bellowed out again and again, his display unquestionably sealing his authority, his dominance, and telling everyone to spread it along the grapevine that K'Shai was untouchable. He took his time, beating the youngblood with his bare fists over and over, purposefully circling him, making small attacks that bloodied his jaw, his chest, his thighs, and abdomen, but not causing deadly blows just yet.

He did not pull out his sword or other bladed weapons from his belt, nor did he eject his dha'kte blades on his wrist for use. R'chnt, seemingly taking pleasure in the opportunity to beat the youngster to a pulp, did so unarmed.

The youngster first attempted to grab at a blade from its sheath mounted on his back armor. He whipped out a serrated weapon that looked like a snub-nosed machete and swung. R'chnt moved out of the way of the attack and grappled the youngster when he saw an opening. He gripped the youth's unarmed wrist and twisted.

Blood began to seep around R'chnt's finger tips; he had dug his claws into the attacker's skin. The youngster gave under the pressure and dropped to his knees, bellowing out in pain and frustration as R'chnt nearly broke his arm. He swung the blade one more time, clearly trying to cut apart R'chnt's left thigh.

R'chnt countered the move with a quick kick to the youngster's metal-clad forearm, landing a firm blow into him with enough power to cause him to drop the weapon and crank his arm backward. R'chnt, never releasing his bloody grip on his opponent's other wrist kicked him again square in the chest and sent him slamming back to the ground. He backed off, growling a resonating threat that reverberated around the room, and waited for his opponent to get up and try again.

K'Shai noticed an extremely subtle shift in R'chnt's gait and position; something she seen him do over and over during their private training sessions as he worked out how to function after the damage done to his body.

He was hurting, and K'Shai's heart began to suddenly pound ferociously. He was making a show of the whole thing, bellowing out continued emphasis of his dominance, and taking opportunity each time the youngster faltered to pace around the circular space. It _looked_ like he was simply waiting for the fight to even up; as he would not make a killing blow just yet.

The barely-there subtle way he shifted his weight, or tensed his abdomen, however, made K'Shai immediately worry that his delay in making the killing strike was for another reason. Was he fatiguing? Was the exertion of this fight too much too quickly? How well had he healed? It had only been a week. As the youngster got up and charged one more time, K'Shai gasped and held her breath, watching in horror at the idea of R'chnt faltering.

This time, the youngster ejected the blades from his gauntlet, intent to kill. R'chnt still remained unarmed. He blocked the attack, countered a swing from the youngster's other arm, and struck again. A loud popping sound filled the air for a fraction of a moment and she realized that the youngster's right lower jaw had been broken from the powerful blow.

The youngster howled, spun around and appeared as though he was about to clatter to the floor in a defeated heap. In a shocking display of prowess and capability, instead of falling, the youngster continued through the twisting action of his almost slow-motion fall and propelled himself in a full spin, pushing off the floor through his arms, and launching his legs towards R'chnt.

He landed a well centered and tremendous blow to R'chnt directly in the abdomen with both feet. R'chnt shifted backwards quickly, but the strike had made certain contact. The crowd burst with howls, fueling the fight and K'Shai cringed in horror, warily eyeing R'chnt. W'rsa had moved in behind her, but she was not paying him attention.

He was close to her, in enough of a position to grab her, to guard her, but her eyes were focused on R'chnt, who immediately retaliated, diving forward and grabbing the youngster by the sides of his head as he landed like a cat in front of R'chnt.

The youngster shrieked in pain as R'chnt slammed one free hand upwards under his jaw, sending him flying backwards to the ground again. He howled over his fallen opponent, and the youngster quickly, again, rolled his legs over his head, back flipping himself to his feet and putting more distance between R'chnt and himself.

R'chnt barreled forward like an angry bull and the youngster jumped up onto a nearby table to avoid being struck. R'chnt, without missing a beat, grabbed the table and pulled it right out from under the Yautja atop it, making a massive clattering noise like thunder as he flipped the heavy wooden table onto its side single-handedly and the hunter fell to the ground, slamming his head hard into the metal floor grates.

In one decidedly desperate move, the youngster, clearly aware he was being outpowered and outwitted by the elder towering over him, pulled himself up and charged forward, dropping his head and powering shoulder-first into R'chnt.

Attacking like a ram, the youngster made contact again with R'chnt, wrapping his arms fully around him, and shoving his head into his chest. Both hunters fell backwards in a heap and R'chnt, making no delay of what looked like an opening in the youngster's attack, quickly rolled over, shifting the youngster under him.

He struck the youngster again and again across the face while he blocked ferocious attacks from the youngster trying to impale him with his wrist blades. Quickly, R'chnt, fueled by raging anger and bellowing the call of n _an-de than-gaun_ again, grabbed a solid hold of the youth's head in one hand, while clutchin the other arm with his other hand. He dug his powerful bony talons into the younger's skin, securing a grip. Blood poured out of the holes.

R'chnt raised the youngster's head and slammed it as hard as he could against the plated metal center aisle of the cantina again and again and did not stop until the planks were so fully covered in bright green blood and darker green splatter of dense brain tissue that no more of the silvery-red colored metal floor was even visible.

K'Shai swallowed in numb horror and the room quieted down. Immediately, the howling and cheering and calling stopped, the females broke their blockade and R'chnt pulled himself to his feet growling a warning rumble.

As he glared around at the Yautja encircling him, each and every one of them bowed their head, signifying that his point had well been made. When R'chnt turned towards K'Shai and W'rsa looming behind her, she became immediately aware that W'rsa took at least two massive steps back, separating himself from her by a good four meters, and even K'Shai lowered her head, dropping her eyes to the bloody carcass on the ground.

R'chnt completed his circular gaze, stopping when he had rotated towards the door, which was now clear. He said nothing as he started towards the door, but after two powerful strides, trailing a growl that lingered threateningly in the room behind him, he paused and extended his right arm out, tipping his head towards K'Shai; a silent indication that he wanted her by his side.

Without delay, she moved into him quickly and he latched onto her tightly, walking out of the cantina rigid and powerful, chin up, continuing to emit a deep multi-tonal growl, making direct eye contact with anyone he passed, just to see if they would submit and drop their gaze or eye him up for a challenge. K'Shai remained lock jawed as she walked along with R'chnt trying to process all that had just transpired, her heart powering away as they continued down a corridor in alarming silence.

They rounded a curving passage, which was clear of anyone else and suddenly K'Shai became dangerously aware of something. R'chnt was leaning on her. _Hard_.

She began to slow her pace as he slowed his, and though she pushed back into him, trying to keep herself erect as she walked, he was leaning so heavily into her that she was having difficulty walking, staying upright, or holding him.

She could feel his grip on her weakening and by the time they barely made it into the lift at the end of what seemed like a corridor the length of an entire planet, R'chnt had lost so much color his skin was noticeably turning blue.

They stepped into the lift and turned so she could shut the door and the moment they did, he collapsed to the ground, shutting his eyes, gasping for air, and coughing up blood.

"Oh, No! No, no, no, R'chnt!" K'Shai bellowed in a worried whisper as she dropped next to him and pressed her hands against him, trying to keep him from slumping completely over onto the floor.

"I've got to get L'ruch!" She said in exasperation, shaking as she realized he was dying before her eyes; _again_.

"No. K'Shai. No more." He said through gurgled spatters of blood as he raised a weak and shaking arm and caressed her face. "You are safe. Females will protect… mei'sa… must… survive…hunt…you mei'sa…"

He began to ramble nonsense after that, but at least he was talking. She kept urging him to stay talking, even if it wasn't making any sense. She understood now, especially after the brutal display, why he refused to be seen by L'ruch again, and while she wanted to respect his beliefs, she was also not about to let him die.

It seemed to her that the Yautja were a little too quick to give in to death, despite being powerful fighters. They lacked the human's drive to fight for life and this was something she could not understand.

As R'chnt slowly faded from consciousness, she shook him back awake. The the lift locked into position on the docking bay level and she urged him to fight, to stand, to walk.

He did not budge and instead resumed nonsensical babble, so K'Shai resorted to any tactic she could to get him on his feet.

She locked the door of the lift closed so it would not open until he was standing. She shook him. She shook him harder. She cried to him. She forcibly shoved her body into his trying to upright him. She pleaded with him through tears not to shut his eyes. She cursed at him. She smacked him.

She felt about ready to slump back on the floor and wail and sob as he shut down and died before her eyes, but at one final urging as she howled a high pitched shriek, R'chnt opened his eyes and worked with her, leaning on her to pull himself to his feet and fight as she begged him to do.

He doubled over in her arms and spewed massive amounts of blood onto the floor, splattering their feet and legs and most of the lift. K'Shai, no longer concerned about keeping up appearances, opened the doors and forced him to drag himself to the ship. She felt him shift his weight every few steps, bouncing between trying to carry himself and slumping into her.

By the time they returned, past any number of 'aseigan she could have cared less about at that point, into the hunt ship and to his chambers, R'chnt was gasping for air harshly and leaving a trail of blood as they went.

Once again, K'Shai was covered in his blood and she felt numb and terrified as he dropped onto the sofa, fighting to breathe against the blood pooling up inside him.

She sobbed and trembled, watching him collapsed on the Yautja-sized futon, trying to decide what to do next. She decided in that moment to go against his will and get L'ruch. Just then, a loud thumping knock on the chamber door startled her, making her jump and hold her breath as if somehow she had been caught in some terrible act no one was supposed to see. He heart, beating furiously in her chest, suddenly sank and for reasons should could not process, she felt guilty and fearful that someone would see what was going on.

"K'Shai!" she heard W'rsa's voice bellow as he banged again on the locked door. "What is going on?"

She paused for a moment and listened. She could hear W'rsa fidgeting outside the door, growling. She stopped thinking. She just reacted.

She pulled herself off the floor and thundered to the door to let him in. He paused and surveyed the room, finding R'chnt in an oozing heap on the sofa, watching K'Shai sob and run back to him. She was quite sure she heard him say something about _not again_ , but she was not really paying attention.

"I have to help him." She said through her sobs in a pleading tone.

"K'Shai.. this is not…" W'rsa started, but she cut him off in a fury.

"NO! I don't want to hear it W'rsa. This is _not_ _happening_. He doesn't want L'ruch to…"

"Of course he does not, K'Shai. He is trying to ensure your protection." W'rsa rebutted quickly, sharply. "And he has. If he dies, you will still be safe. Do you not understand? Your position is not in question. He has done that for you. Others will protect you. Females. Me."

K'Shai had tuned out most of what W'rsa said, and she especially had tuned out the _way_ he said it, or it would have fueled her into an entirely different type of fire. She scanned R'chnt's body, noticing that his abdomen was distending and he was looking paler and weaker.

"I learned a lot from helping Carlos in the safe zone in Chicago," she started to say, not realizing or caring that W'rsa really had no idea what she was talking about. "I can do this. I can help him. I have to help him. He's bleeding internally. I'm going to do this." She turned to W'rsa. "Help me, please."

W'rsa growled a disproving rumble but ultimately considered the situation and nodded.

"I need a laser. Medical supplies."

W'rsa quickly removed the targeting laser for his shoulder mounted plasma caster from his helmet that was secured to his back. K'Shai used it without delay to cut R'chnt's side open, and immediately, blood poured out of him all over the sofa and floor into a great pool.

K'Shai focused on using the equipment W'rsa provided from his field kit and a medical kit from the ship that he retrieved from Gyr'in-de's work bay, and sealed up bleeding wounds before closing the incision into his abdomen. With W'rsa's help they propped him up slightly so his lungs would have an easier time working. She gave him painkillers and sedative and noticed that he was breathing more clearly as she watched him with her own breath held.

"Thank you for your help," she said wearily to W'rsa, clamping her small hand around his armor bracer near his wrist.

He glanced to her, to her light touch on him, one finger of her's barely gracing against his skin. It was not the first time he had touched her, but he had forgotten how much cooler her body was; how soft her delicate skin was. He grumbled as he eyed R'chnt again and nodded to K'Shai before turning to leave the chambers.

K'Shai defied the gods, and he made mention of it on his way out. He kept his other thoughts to himself, though.

So many had compared her – all _oomans_ -to an animal. She was clearly an inferior creation that matured quickly, lived quickly, was fearful and suited more to flee than fight.

How was it, then, he wondered silently as he approached R'chnt's chambers door and depressed the panel to open the door and leave, that she was such a strong little thing with so much appeal.

R'chnt was far from crazy, he realized, and K'Shai remained locked next to him, fighting for him against the very will of the gods.

"I will send 'aseigan to clean the ship." He grumbled.

Nodding, K'Shai acknowledged him. "H'chak," she whispered softly; the closest word in the Yautja language to a "thank you."

"I will clean the chambers." She added, and he nodded to her, understanding her reasoning.

K'Shai watched him go and looked to R'chnt once again, then sat down on the floor and leaned back against the sofa and broke down sobbing.


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

"K'Shai?" R'chnt muttered weakly as he righted himself.

She wasn't sure how long had passed, but she heard his voice and woke up with alertness, turning to him and surveying him. He was dazed and clearly pained, but he sat up and gathered himself, recalling everything that happened up until leaving the cantina.

She filled him in on the details, helped him to stand and as she walked with him, slowly towards the shower, she realized it had been more than twenty-six hours. She had not eaten and she was not sure if it was lack of food for so long or overwhelming amounts of stress and anxiety that had made her feel so suddenly light headed and dizzy upon standing.

Regardless, before stepping with R'chnt into the shower, she first odered an 'aseigan to bring them both food and send someone to clean the chambers. She realized only after she ended the communication on the computer console that, because she was keeping half an eye on R'chnt, who was holding on to the wall near the bathroom looking as though he was trying to keep the ship from falling over, she actually sounded rather bossy and curt in her request, which she had not intended.

Although she did notice the results getting consistently better, with prompt responses and quicker service to her requests. She assumed the 'aseigan were just used to being sharply commanded as opposed to politely requested.

After they were cleaned and fed and the blood from the furniture and floors had been removed, K'Shai and R'chnt sat together in the bed. He wrapped her in his arms as he sat upright, leaning his back against the wall, stroking her hair, throatily purring to her, trying to content her as he realized she was still quite stressed. Her scent changed dramatically when she was anxious and she shifted into worry and fear so easily, it was a scent he had become quite familiar with.

He silently thought about all that had happened and what she had done to save his life for the second time and let her beliefs on the matter absorb into him. While he was questioning the human way of seemingly fighting the will of their gods in any way possible, she was questioning the Yautja way of being what she said, 'too willing' to greet theirs.

It perplexed her, she had told him, how such strong and proud warriors would fight for their rightful Honor, yet seemed to lack the drive to fight for their right to live.

He silently considered how strange it seemed to him, that her species' way was to fight, in any and every way possible to live. It made them excellent prey, but he also generally considered such desperate fighting against the will of the _paya_ to be a reflection of cowardly fear and weakness.

Now, twice, he was alive _because_ of what he believed reflected weakness. K'Shai was most definitely fearful, he thought. She was afraid of him dying.

She was afraid of continuing on in her life, in the mei'sa as was proper for Yautja females, without him. She feared such things that he had never once considered could be anyone's way of life, it was so vastly different.

She had maintained to him that his presence _alive_ in her life was quintessential to her and that she expected him to be a father to the child growing within her.

It was not normal for Yautja males to take part in anything to do with their offspring, but K'Shai not only could not understand that, she adamantly stuck to her customs that males and females reared their children together. He thought about it, realizing why the human method seemed to make sense for them.

He realized, as he held her while she drifted off to sleep against his slowly rising and falling chest, that he had been wrong about K'Shai. She was willing to fight to keep him alive because she needed him.

She was dependent on his protection and support. She was strong enough to fight aggressively simply because she was fearful. And yet, she believed Yautja to be confusing.

K'Shai did not want other females to be her support, or to help her raise the offspring. She had explained that human males were expected to provide for their mates and progeny. He did not quite understand what she meant when she talked about things called _jobs_ and _money_ , but understood enough to know that this was the way a human male provided his family with shelter, food, and security; the things expected of him by his mate.

He quietly pondered the differences between the human way and the Yautja way, as the 'aseigan returned to clear out the empty food tray in the living room and deposit another full one on the table next to the bed. He thought about her drive to protect him in her own way, to keep him alive.

The measures she took to save his life, not once, but twice. He knew she would do it again and again if necessary and it humbled him to see such a strong drive, not only for her own survival and her offspring's, but for his as well.

She viewed him as a protector something she could not live without, and while it was fear that encouraged that particular behavior, it also spurred strength of spirit in her that he had never seen before. He admitted to himself that he did not wish to die and leave her to navigate her life apart from him.

While he knew the possibility was very real and had already considered what would happen to her after he was gone, he found the thought of it disturbing. He knew of course that other males would fight for a chance to breed to her.

He knew W'rsa would be the first one to make such a stand, and also presumed K'tore-de might. He doubted, though, that most of the males who showed interest in her, wanted anything more than the chance to mate and continue on to breed other females as was the Yautja way.

They did not want to understand her, hold her in the quiet still of an empty space, or let her scent absord into them until it was part of their very blood. They certainly would not even consider the notion of raising offspring with her.

He pressed his face against her head, inhaled her scents, listened to her breath, watched the fetus within her fidget and flinch, it's tiny little fingers curled against its head. K'Shai was pressed against him with her head against his chest and one knee curled over his thighs, positioned on his good side, carefully avoiding any contact with the damage to his lower right side. Even in her sleep, she attempted to display her concern and awareness for him.

He considered how the injuries he endured were going to affect him going forward. For the first time in his life, he was thinking about the Path ahead, not just the Path before him now. She would need him to be there for her, _always._

It was humbling to think of, and even more so when he admitted to himself that he needed her just as much. He was not accustomed to _needing_ the companionship of another, but she had successfully managed to trigger something in him he had never even thought about, or imagined he was capable of.K'Shai's "demands" of him, though different than he was accustomed to, were not really extreme or that hard to understand once he thought about it.

She was only asking for his protection, security, company. She needed him to provide her with warmth and comfort, support and guidance, companionship and pleasure. She willingly left behind the only life she had ever known to join him and learn his ways and as he thought about it, he did not think he could have done the same.

Living with her, amongst the humans, trying to adjust to their ways; he doubted he could do it, yet she had managed to accomplish a healthy start into adjusting to Yautja life aboard the _jag'd'atoll_ in a very short period of time, while still holding to certain beliefs of her own.

It was impressive. He thought about what he was told the day before by the other elders, about how many were impressed by her and curious about her. It made him realize that K'Shai would likely _always_ need his protection.

He could teach her to spar, to fight, to hunt and hold her own against all manner of prey. She had already survived against the _kainde amedha_ , something not even every Yautja was capable of. She was learning to live as a Yautja and she had done all of this in a short period of her young life but ultimately she would always rely on him to be there for her.

Protecting her by public display was one thing. It was setting the stage for her to live amongst the Yautja, but she needed _more_ from him; more than he was accustomed to providing for anyone other than himself.

She needed his strength, his presence, his guidance, wisdom, tutelage, and ultimately she would trust his judgement entirely and follow him wherever he led, with more unquestioning devotion than any Yautja student under his charge.

K'Shai had lived less years than a young Yautja ready to undertake their first _chiva_. By comparison, it was hard for him to even believe that she was old enough to have done all that she had and be mature enough physically to be bred. She would live and die faster than a Yautja, and she learned faster than they did, too.

She had demonstrated great wisdom and unwavering solidity in her beliefs; attributes that Yautja ten times her years did not possess. Yet, for all of it, he knew she would never actually _be_ Yautja. She was human and she would not ever be as strong or as powerful as a Yautja was, at least not physically.

He caressed her gently, wincing at the throbbing pain in his side and a powerful feeling in the pit of his stomach as he realized that she had strengths and powers that were far greater than any Yautja he knew.

She would always need him to care not only for her, but about her, and she was adamant and unwavering in her absolute desire that he serve as more than just a breeding mate to her; more than just a sire of her offspring.

What she needed and expected from him was not that hard to provide, but it would not be easy either. He knew there would be great challenges ahead. He even considered that she was challenging him in ways he never even envisioned, and how he lived up to those challenges were as crucial to her as life and death and honor.

He ran his hand across her body, along her abdomen and watched the fetus. He had already had more contact with this offspring than he had with any of his others and he found himself curiously envisioning what the child would turn into, what she would look like when born, and how she might bring his mothers' heritage honor within the Clan.

He realized K'Shai had put a wealth of trust into him, and it was up to him not to break or defy that trust; to respect it, and to humble himself enough to take on the challenges she expected of him.

She demonstrated her expectations of him over and over again, and did everything she felt she needed to do to ensure that he knew them and lived up to them. He realized he needed to trust her and her choices just as much, and allow himself to turn away from certain Yautja ways in very much the same manner in which she turned away from certain human ways in order to make this pairing work.

He wrapped his arms around her, deepening his purr, relaxing enough that his chest began to rumble its soothing sound, and he allowed it to overtake him while she slept against him as he continued to think.

She finally stirred, from hunger as she announced, and R'chnt offered her the tray sitting next to him as she questioned his condition, trying to assess how he was feeling.

"You did what was needed, K'Shai. I will be fine."

She smiled and tenderly caressed him, leaned in to him to kiss his cheek.

"Good. I'm glad. Just, _please_ , take it slow. I really need you to heal, however long it takes. I really don't care if you miss the whole rest of the war. If you are worried about someone questioning your strength or position, I don't think after that fight anyone is going to."

He nodded.

"You are correct, K'Shai. There will always be challenges, _always_. Yautja positions are challenged every day, especially if one is viewed as too weak to hold it.

But to protect you, I have done what I must. The females will also provide protection. You will learn from them as you do me. You _must,_ K'Shai."

"Yes." She muttered with a pause.

"I will. I have been learning a little bit from them already. I wasgoing to meet S'ridi and some of the others today but that's just going to wait. I don't want to leave you right now. Please tell me you're not planning to return to Earth?"

R'chnt spread his tusks in a small smile. "No K'Shai. I will remain here with you for a while longer."

K'Shai seemed thoroughly relieved at that, though she did as she stated and remained on the K'ojol with him as the days passed.

Once he was stronger, he continued on teaching her more from the ancient texts, which also doubled as a lesson on reading, speaking, and writing the Yautja language. She kept calling it difficult and complex and he continued to maintain that Earthly languages were too verbose and confusing.

"I guess we can keep saying that about each other's cultures forever, couldn't we? We really are very different aren't we?" She said through a thin smile.

R'chnt nodded, bowing his horned head in agreement. "Humans and Yautja _are_ very different. We are unique."

K'Shai leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his neck in a tight embrace that made his body shudder with delight. The way she touched him, even something as simple as a kiss on his cheek, was so full of power that it sent a ripple through his body every time.

He came to find that he absolutely needed that contact from her. It thrilled him and aroused him and as he rumbled off a deep growl and laid back on the floor under her, she got the message quickly that he was feeling stronger and was definitely aroused.

She could feel him firming up against her thighs, under his loin cloth and she pressed her lips against his abdomen while she stroked a hand up his thigh and between his legs, inducing a deeper and deeper rumble from him as he stretched out below her and she continued to grope and caress him. She gripped his shaft.

She gripped his sac below. She stroked and caressed and pulled and squeezed and released, slowly, rhythmically, carefully; always stimulating him for pleasure, pushing his natural reluctance to be handled in that area farther and farther from his mind as only she could.

K'Shai removed his belt, freeing him completely from his garments as she straddled his thighs, then removed her own leather attire and shifted her body forward, raising up over him and slowly settling herself down over his erection as they both moaned in delight.

R'chnt tensed his body, shifting his hips forward as K'Shai lowered herself completely against him, swallowing the fullness of his hard, dripping rod before she shifted her body and began to work her hips, rising and falling, panting and moaning harder and louder with each exertion until he exploded inside of her. He echoed her high pitched shrieks of ecstasy with a deep harmony of growls.

They mated in the temple of the gods, something R'chnt took great pride in. They had directed his Path to her and he expressed his gratitude by savoring what he was given. He rose to his feet a short time later, his body still surging with lingering arousal that fueled him as he walked with K'Shai through the Clan ship.

K'Shai was learning, slowly and steadily. He was guiding her in the ways of the Path of the Hunter, and he was also taking on new capacities as a teacher of language and culture that he had never needed to teach before.

It was a new experience for him and he was pleased by the progress she was making within each day. Each time she walked with him through the Clan ship, her manner was beginning to change, along with her self-carriage, confidence, and understanding of the Yautja around her.

K'Shai was physically getting stronger every day, performing the exercises he guided her through better and better as her body grew fitter. She was gaining weight, toning muscle, eating well, and crediting much of her strength to the child within her. The offspring was healthy and well formed, and adding to her _h'dui'se_ in ways she could not understand.

Slowly, as days turned into a week, then two, then three, the Yautja aboard the ship, from hunters that returned from the planet for supplies and medical care and brought news of the war and Earth that K'Shai eagerly listened to, to the workers who she interacted with over garments, lotions, oils, and anything else she desired, to the 'aseigan who took her orders and followed them, were all beginning to become more comfortable around her, and she with them.

Each time a new group of hunters appeared on the ship, they all gawked at her, curiously inspected her with wide eyes, carefully aware of how close they were to her, wary of R'chnt's noteable protectiveness. K'Shai grew accustomed to it, and did not seem to mind it and word had most definitely spread, as R'chnt had desired, that she was in all ways untouchable.

As K'Shai spent more and more time slowly acclimating to the mei'sa, which allowed R'chnt time to spar with his peers as his own strength improved, the females also provided her with a public announcement of her protection amongst them. They expected her to be treated like any bred female Yautja.

They also expected her to _act_ like any other bred female Yautja, which K'Shai refused to do. She continually returned to R'chnt after a few hours, or a full day, amongst the females. Each time she did, she brought back with her complaints of how some of the females viewed her, most especially her grievances over Neh'rti.

R'chnt knew better than to press too much into Neh'rti's affairs but he was able to find out quite a different story than what K'Shai presented to him. He could not understand why she was so sure Neh'rti was planning her death and personally working single handedly to ensure K'Shai's misery.

"If she intended you harm, or found your presence in the Clan undesirable, she would have tended to the matter long ago." R'chnt assured her.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" K'Shai bit back, unwarrantedly harshly.

"K'Shai!" R'chnt grumbled dismissively from his relaxed position next to her on the sofa in his chambers.

She always preferred to discuss these matters, as well as mostly any other personal topic, well out of sight and ear shot of anyone else. This behavior both perplexed and pleased R'chnt.

There were matters that were normally public display that K'Shai preferred to keep behind closed doors, but her desire to keep certain matters behind closed doors also predisposed K'Shai to a trait that R'chnt wished more Yautja possessed.

She never questioned him publically. She never discussed anything she did not understand, or anything he may have said or done that confused or troubled her in front of others.

She avoided making any kind of public display of frustration or uncertainty, which worked to both his advantage, as well as hers.

Publically, K'Shai was seen as strong and collected, and even when she unleashed her troubles over her adjustment to the females or any other matter to him in privacy, R'chnt still could only see her strengths.

The rest of the Clan aboard the ship saw her exactly as he saw her – intelligent, wary, constantly evaluating her situation and surroundings; the very same manners that any capable hunter should display. They saw her as a bit reserved, but not cowardly. She was quiet and perhaps timid, but not fearful or unwilling to hold her ground.

Her nature of thinking before she acted casted a stronger stature than many Yautja who preferred it the other way around.

Just as she once stared down an 'aseigan who failed to do her bidding as quickly as he should have, her ability to dominate by being unbudging was growing. She had learned when to, and most of all, when not to, drop her eyes in submission.

She complimented R'chnt well in so doing, because her very nature ensured that he was never directly questioned publically, which only etched his status that much stronger, and hers right along with it. K'Shai, though she seemed not to realize it, was gaining respect and earning her true place every day.

He felt proud knowing he could not have made a better choice in a mate.

"Neh'rti would not _need_ to plan anything. Her intentions are clear. You are here. You are Blooded. You have been brought into the mei'sa."

K'Shai quieted down and thought about it more. She was frustrated by her continued experiences with Neh'rti and some of the other females. Not all of the ones who looked down upon her, insulted her and showed their blatant disrespect for her and her growing offspring were highly ranked.

It was infuriating to be constantly reminded by even the lowest of them that she was most definitely the outcast.

K'Shai was quite sure that Neh'rti quickly regretted her decision. The mighty Clan Leader had summed her up in less than a minute; probably less than a half a minute, she thought.

Since that first time they met, Neh'rti had never stopped prodding K'Shai, snidely commandeering over her, aggressively correcting her every time she tried to learn or do anything new or different. The problem was _everything_ was new and different, so Neh'rti was constantly supplied with something else to critique viciously.

So maybe Neh'rti wasn't planning her death in a thousand different ways, she considered, as R'chnt had told her repeatedly as the weeks progressed. Maybe Neh'rti actually was trying to see K'Shai succeed, although succeed at what she couldn't be sure exactly.

Maybe it wasn't so much the education she was receiving, but the execution of the lesson plans, she considered. Then again, as she thought about it, she should probably avoid even thinking about the word _execution_ in relation to Neh'rti all together.

She was trying to learn, trying to understand the female ways and trying to grow a better understanding of her own pregnancy and what Yautja childhood would look like for her growing baby.

Despite being constantly reminded that she was biologically not as capable of understanding, learning, or performing any of the concepts the females were exposing her to, she had learned much, not only from direct instruction, but also by absorbing the unspoken lessons.

It was overwhelming at how quickly the information was coming at her, and in drastically different ways between R'chnt and the males she had been getting to know versus the females in the mei'sa. R'chnt had told her before; several times in fact, that females and males lead very separate lives that were vastly un-intertwined.

They really only bothered with each other's businesses during breeding season or in matters that affected the Clan on the whole, which was a concept K'Shai had a very hard time understanding.

As she was told, when breeding season circled around, males put on quite the display to attract potential mates. She already had begun to understand the concept that all of their hunting, all of their attempts to challenge themselves and improve status was just as much to prove they were the best of the bunch between males as it was to impress females.

It was a curious thing, for someone so naturally driven to bring pleasure to her mate and bond to him for her life, to imagine how the female Yautja operated without that level of desire of commitment or devotion, but she was beginning to experience it first-hand.

The Yautja genders truly were separate from each other. K'Shai had once wondered if there were female 'aseigan at all and she quickly discovered there were. Even though they were slaves, they were still female and thus, they were also in the mei'sa; even they were protected from males.

The vast majority of female 'aseigan were kept dedicated to the mei'sa on the homeworld, which K'Shai had begun to learn about as well. Only a handful were aboard the ship and they were _never_ allowed to leave the confines of the mei'sa.

Working castes, and of course the hunters, were the only females K'Shai had seen out on the ship itself, and even they rarely co-mingled with the males, though they had access to every location a male could go.

There were female healers, leather workers, apothecaries, weapons and armor makers, engineers and mechanics, and every other possible function necessary to support the clan, but even their shops or tasks were conducted separately than those performed by males.

There were entire levels of the Clan ship completely dedicated to only female workers, and female-only areas were strictly off limits to, and well avoided by, males.

Female 'aseigan in the ship-side mei'sa tended to the care of the den mother females and their offspring, and any needed supplies from the ship were either retrieved by willing workers or huntresses, or brought to a deposit area outside the constantly sealed mei'sa door by male 'aseigan.

They were considered almost as undesirable as _eto_ by other females. K'Shai felt a little sick knowing that her position amongst most of the females was somewhere between the two castes, possibly even worse, she imagined, like she was such an outcast there simply was not a name for her caste.

Female Yautja that never proved themselves capable of attaining their _chiva_ were considered so weak they were not even able to be around males of any caste. Unworthy of reproducing, they were artificially controlled against entering into breeding readiness via implants in their body so their undesirable genetics would not taint the strong bloodlines that the Clan valued.

This was at least, a more civilized practice than how females punished outcasted males that were deemed unworthy of breeding; severing gonads in a public display, being one of the most common forms of such punishment.

Only at the highest levels of the Clan, like the Clan council which consisted of elders and apprentices of both genders, did the two sexes ever really have much to do with each other, and all matters of the council were oversaw by Neh'rti.

Her decision was final, but she was not entirely closed minded. Neh'rti clearly cared for her Clan and concerned herself greatly with matters that directly affected the status of it on the whole, or the females in it.

K'Shai hadn't realized, but was later informed in bits and pieces through chatter from different females that were more open to her, that R'chnt's petition to bring K'Shai into the Clan became such a heated matter, the council spent a full rotation in their hall.

Most of the males were adamant against alien blood being brought into the Clan, and two of them had declared that both K'Shai and R'chnt should be executed. R'chnt had not been surprised by that news, especially, he had said, considering who was the most vocal for that decision, a grumpy elder named Ti-nyk that R'chnt had bested again and again for mates.

"Jealously," he had snarled with disinterest, seemingly unconcerned about it. "He would wish to have you as a mate for himself, but he is unworthy of you. He is happy to speak loudly when his belly is full and he has a mug of c'ntlip in his grasp, but fails again and again to put those words to good use. Ti-nyk has beseeched the council to have my head more than once…"

K'Shai eyed him widely, wondering how R'chnt could be so casual, almost amused, about such things. R'chnt continued.

"I have told him many times if he wants it, he can try to take it. Ti-nyk is very good at asking someone else to handle his matters, not so much handling them on his own."

"How did he become part of the council, then?" K'Shai wondered aloud. "Don't you have to be strong to prove yourself or something?"

"You are learning, K'Shai!" R'chnt chortled loudly, thoroughly amused by K'Shai's response. "Perhaps you should ask him that… to his face… in front of the council. I would enjoy seeing his response."

It obvious R'chnt has little respect for Ti-nyk, but he offered no further explanation.

"Well, if he's on the council, and he is speaking out against _us_ … then what? Will he rally people to follow him? Will he be able to change Neh'rti's decision?"

R'chnt shook his head slowly, clicking his tusks together for emphasis.

"K'Shai, _nothing_ changes Neh'rti's mind. She has accepted you. You have no reason to be anxious over opinions of cowards who speak behind closed doors. Neh'rti listened to all of the council's opinions on the matter, and discussed my actions with me at length."

"She did?" K'Shai asked in surprise.

"Of course."

"What did you tell her?"

R'chnt clicked deeply, reassuring K'Shai with a simple stroke of the side of her face. "I told her enough."

As he failed to elaborate any further on what exactly the discussion over bringing a human into the fold of the Clan entailed, and K'Shai's curiosity was peaked, she spent the next few days trying to pry information from the few females in the mei'sa that she talked with the most.

As K'Shai began to spend more and more time in the mei'sa, R'chnt continued to re-condition his body in preparation for a return to Earth. K'Shai developed something of a routine and had come to enjoy her time with the mothers aboard ship with newborns of their own. Supervising the young cubs and watching mothers handle their infants was a learning experience, even without direct instruction.

While she sat in a large, golden hued leathery chair eating diced chunks of fruit the size of her fist and strips of hearty meat as three females sat nearby, K'Shai managed to veer the conversation towards the direction she wanted it to go.

"Neh'rti's biggest consideration is the strength of the Clan, K'Shai. What do _you_ think when she found out R'chnt, one of the strongest and most honored Elders of the Clan had taken a human mate?"

"I'm sure she was thinking about the possibility of you conceiving an offspring. And I have no doubt that the idea of killing the both of you crossed her mind."

K'Shai was certain of it, and not certain that thought had ever _left_ Neh'rti's mind. She felt as though she had been accepted into the Clan under protest because of the possibility she could get pregnant by R'chnt.

Due to the loss of lives the Yautja were suffering, Neh'rti was curious at the very least to see the potential a hybrid could offer.

"Do you plan to have another? Assuming this one survives and is strong enough to be accepted by the Clan, of course?" One of the females questioned.

"You _really_ can be bred multiple times?" Another asked K'Shai in unhidden surprise.

K'Shai kicked her legs under her butt as she shifted and sank back again into the oversized leather chair, casting a glance around the circular room, past golden-hued sitting furniture and bronzish metal cabinetry along the walls.

She glanced at two youngsters who were playing furiously with one another, growling and hissing as they bounced around the room under the supervision of three adults who were also looking towards K'Shai, apparently paying attention with high interest.

"I thought that was just a rumor spread by males curious enough to display their interests in mating with you," another female said with an unreserved tone of distaste.

K'Shai cast a wide-eyed glare at her, both annoyed by her tone and surprised by the suggestion that there were _enough_ males who might have such an interest that such rumors could even be thought up. R'chnt's aggressive displays of protectiveness over her, she would have thought would have been enough to quell any such talk, but it seemed to be having the opposite effect.

She stammered out a quiet response to the female who questioned her, her tone suggesting there was simply no other way.

"Of course I can."

"So strange," the female said briskly. "It seems R'chnt has a wisdom we did not realize. You continue to mate with him while bred, _and_ you can be re-bred."

"How many offspring can you have, K'Shai?" Another questioned.

K'Shai was glad to see curiosity from the females who were trying to acclimate to her, and she responded as best as she could in short concise answers, to avoid confusion.

"I'm not really sure," she said with a shrug. "As many as I can, I suppose. Some women only have two or three children. Some I've heard of having as many as ten or fifteen."

" _At once?!"_ One of the females gasped in utter terror as she shifted her toddler into her lap, while others simply came to a complete stop and stared at her in slightly horrified wonder.

K'Shai's face flushed and she giggled lightly, for the briefest of moments relaxing amongst the group.

"No! Maybe two or three at once. I guess I've heard about women having six or seven at once, but that's very rare."

The females murmered their awestruck wonder at human reproduction for several minutes and K'Shai listened quietly. The thought of having more than a single offspring seemed so foreign to them that it confused K'Shai.

"Only _animals_ have multiple offspring." K'Shai overheard one of them grumble.

"You mean Yautja never have more than one baby at a time? No one has ever had twins?" K'Shai asked with equal amounts of surprise in her tone, and trying sharply to turn the conversation back on the Yautja.

"More than one offspring _at a time_?" One of the older females in the room said with a gasping tone of disbelief. "We do not have more than one offspring at all."

K'Shai paused, and felt her heart jump a few beats as she tried to process what she was being told. "What?"

"You…you…. Can only have one baby?" She said with a surprised whisper.

"As female Yautja mature, we enter into breeding readiness, and cycle into breeding season." One of the younger females, nursing a suckling, explained.

K'Shai nodded. "It's the same for humans."

One of the older females added in, "As our female young mature, they are highly tempermental because of maturing hormones. Their pheromones can drive the males into a mating frenzy."

K'Shai thought that sounded fairly similar, too.

"Is that why there are no unblooded females on the atoll?"

One of the females nodded, another spoke. "Unblooded youngsters are on the homeworld, in the mei'sa where they belong. Separate from one another, so they are not driven by their urges to mate. Unblooded are not permitted to breed. They have proven nothing for the Clan. They remain in the mei'sa and they train.

Females train only with female hunt leaders. When they are Blooded and ready to breed, the best and strongest females can expect the strongest males to pursue them for mating. It is not desireable for freshly blooded males to mate at all, but still, some of our young females in a hurry to mate will select unproven sires.

Only males who are strong and proven as hunters make for the best sires. It assures strong blood in the Clan, K'Shai. You have selected a strong mate yourself, K'Shai."

"Of course males are _always_ ready to mate." One female chuckled.

"Not all of them will," another said sternly.

"Never?" K'Shai responded with surprise.

"Would you prefer to breed with a young male who survived chiva, or an experienced hunter such as R'chnt who has proven himself strong and noble? Once a female has been bred, it is done for life. There are no others. Breeding with the strongest male helps ensure a strong offspring; a good addition to the bloodline."

That much certainly made sense, but the older female continued on.

"When breeding season occurs, the males will battle each other for mates. You will see. D _ai-shui_ makes the males _uncivilized._ Females in season cannot focus on anything else; the males always making a show of themselves. Even the wisest of them parade around like fools!"

K'Shai smiled as she let her imagination run wild with what kind of events would occur during those times.

"Lesser males simply don't have the appeal, not for a _strong_ female, anyway. It's best for the freshly Blooded females to select mates that have proven themselves. Freshly Blooded males have not proven themselves strong hunters or sires, but sometimes they get to take mates."

"And males mate with more than one female each season?" K'Shai questioned with interest, trying to piece together how it all worked.

"If they are daring enough to try!" One female trilled in laughter.

Some of the others sniggered along with her.

"They will all try to impress us. Perhaps even _you_ , since you can be rebred. There may be _some_ who may even challenge R'chnt for you. He will surely fight to the death over you. You clearly please him. And no doubt you have discovered R'chnt's stamina." One of them said.

"I'm surprised you can satisfy him. You keep him so pleasured and taken with you. You must have strong stamina, too." One added in with a biting tone.

The comment drew some rumbling throaty chortles from the females in the room and made K'Shai flush again.

"Males will fight each other for females? To the death?" K'Shai asked, ignoring the remarks, because they weren't exactly incorrect.

"Not always to the death, not if they are sensible. Unproven males should at least have the intelligence to know when to back down against a solid superior over a female." One explained. "But it can still be amusing to watch them fight!"

"Females will keep urging the fight, sometimes. Any proper female will challenge the male to prove his worth directly to her once he has bested other males for her." Another added.

K'Shai listened eagerly, curiously, having the most in-depth conversation with the Yautja about their mating customs since she had come aboard. She found it all a little hard to understand, but interesting, and the females in the room all certainly perked up with interest over the discussion.

"Females fight the males, too?" K'Shai echoed in surprise, mildly beginning to understand the breeding season.

"Yautja females are strong. Aggressive!" One said proudly.

"Sounds familiar." K'Shai said with a light chuckle.

"Humans are the same?" One of the younger females asked.

"Well, sort of, I suppose." K'Shai smirked. "I mean, yes, we can get pretty moody as we mature. Especially when we get our _periods_."

"What is that?" A simultaneous echo from three curious females resounded in the room.

K'Shai took a moment to gather her thoughts and explain, almost a little taken aback by the sudden spark of interest.

" _Monthly?_ " One of the females immediately interjected. "Humans can be bred every _month_?"

"K'Shai, you will probably need to remain in the mei'sa too. Or constantly pregnant. Does R'chnt know what he is getting in to? He'll be up for a challenge in more ways than one."

The females all thought the subject was quite humorous, and K'Shai couldn't help but chuckle, too. "I think he does!"

"Your human males must always be satisfied." One of the younger females stated honestly and K'Shai pressed her lips together, raising her eyebrows dismissively.

"With so many available females all the time, your males must never fight. Do you even bother to seek strong males?" One female added a little harshly.

"Your people must not have crimes?" Another asked with a hint of surprise in her voice.

"You mean Yautja _do?"_ K'Shai responded back in equal surprise.

It simply never occurred to her that a species as formidable as the Yautja, who valued killing, could have any type of actions deemed criminal, save perhaps for being viewed as _weak_. The only real criminal act she knew of was the one that had destroyed her planet.

"What kind of crimes?" She pressed further.

"It happens. Rarely, but it happens. Lesser males, not worthy of breeding if they lack strength and power like better hunters. Driven to mate in any way they can." One started.

"By attacking females?" K'Shai asked with forboding surprise and received a few nods.

The females told her they almost never concerned themselves with matters that involved males, except in the case of a sexually frustrated male attacking a female.

Rape was a matter handled exclusively by the females and the guilty male would find himself strung up in the center of the Clan city to be removed of his offending body parts and slowly and completely torn apart.

It sounded like a solid deterrent from such acts, K'Shai thought. What male would want to willingly risk eliciting such punishment? But K'Shai had been told that it had been known to happen; a lesser Yautja male attacking a weaker female 'aseigan who was sent out of the mei'sa, for example.

"That is why they are preventing from cycling into breeding season. They are too weak to defend themselves and bring honor to the Clan with their bloodlines." One older female seethed as two bow-headed 'aseigan worked nearby to clear off trays and bring new food and drink to the gathered females.

"You would do well to remain _in_ the mei'sa at all times, the same as the 'aseigan. For your own protection." Another said with a tone of truly trying to offer help, but implying without subtrifuge that K'Shai was too weak to be out amongst the males.

"Oh no, K'Shai has intentions of remaining _with_ R'chnt. She does not wish the share in the Yautja Way, just R'chnt's bed. Must be all that stamina." A looming voice interjected into the room and a hush fell.

K'Shai eyed Neh'rti striding, like a cat circling injured prey, around the perimeter of the room.

"That is the _human_ way, isn't it, K'Shai?"

K'Shai barely heard any sounds over her own thundering heart. Neh'rti sent a shiver up her spine, but K'Shai collected herself and nodded politely, lowering her eyes.

"You take your place as nehptu seriously! You embrace qualities that no Yautja here find strong."

"Humans do raise their children together and share in each other's lives. That is strength." K'Shai said in a biting tone, and Neh'rti flared her tusks, adding in a deep rumble of displeasure.

"Females _and_ male humans raise the offspring? _Together?_ " One female, either uncaring or oblivious of the tense showdown between Neh'rti and K'Shai chimed in, catching K'Shai's attention, which gave her an excuse to break eye contact with the towering Clan Leader, who simply remained lingering in the back of the room.

"That's right."

"I can't imagine any male being capable of that!" One chortled heartily.

"And what does R'chnt think of having to raise offspring?" Another asked.

K'Shai lifted her eyebrows and huffed as she came up with an answer. "He's adjusting to the idea."

"The offspring is safest in the mei'sa, K'Shai, and it is proper. Is this child going to be human or Yautja? It cannot be both, K'Shai. And neither can you." Neh'rti grumbled with a warning.

Before K'Shai could respond, another added in her thoughts.

"K'Shai, it is completely unnatural to raise offspring out of the mei'sa. It is imperitive that the offspring learn the proper Way and prepare to become strong members of the Clan. The time it takes to develop each youth is long and crucial. You should think on this."

"This is how humans do things," she tried to explain. "I understand that males have nothing to do with their offspring. But R'chnt is ready for this. So am I."

"Males are not permitted to be around offspring, K'Shai. Why do you think Blooded males have no place in the mei'sa. They are male; they are not capable of raising offspring. They would likely get a child killed." One of the females questioned warningly.

"R'chnt would _never_ hurt his own child." K'Shai defended adamantly. "Not even on accident. I trust him. I trust him with myself and I trust him with the baby."

"Imagine how small and _weak_ she will be, K'Shai. That offspring will never be a true Yautja; it would be best protected in the mei'sa." Another female added.

Yet another chimed in, certain in her words, "K'Shai, you have proven your worth to R'chnt to earn the Blooding mark, but such a small and fragile little offspring? It will not survive outside of the mei'sa, _especially_ on the homeworld. It is only half Yautja. Neh'rti knows and is trying make you understand. The child will die."

K'Shai gritted her teeth, agitated and annoyed.

Neh'rti flared her tusks with a displeased chuff.

"Well, we will see what happens over the next one hundred of your Earth years."

K'Shai looked at her in alarm.

"I don't understand?"

Neh'rti stopped scoffing and glanced at K'Shai quizzically, looking as though she was calculating math in her head. "Is that not how you call your ages? _Years?"_

"Yes, but… one hundred? It doesn't take a hundred years to grow up."

A quiet fell as the females paid close attention to the conversation and a realization dawned on all of them that the differences in child-rearing extended far beyond cultural views.

K'Shai, calculating in her head and turning to worry, glanced towards the two toddlers still play fighting against each other, toppling into one another in clumsy, uncoordinated, and rather adorable attacks. In her mind, the children were two years old at the very most.

They were disproportionate looking and pudgy, with little nubs barely showing for their tusks and tiny little white canines and incisors in their mouths. They were clearly toddlers.

"How old are they?" She asked their mothers standing nearby to confirm for herself that they were three, maybe four, years old at the most and get everyone to understand what each was talking about.

One mother glanced to her son and responded. "Outinde is nearly two _dutach_."

K'Shai was still learning the differences in the Yautja calendar, which she found as frustratingly confusing as their hieroglyphic style written language. Her verbal skills had grown enough to hold the conversation and she was sure she had understood the word correctly. She paused and did the math and gasped.

A dutach was the rough equivalent of about an Earth's decade. What K'Shai had thought of as typical toddlers had taken the human equivalent of at least eighteen years to grow. She looked at the rambunctious offspring in a horrified gaze which clearly perturbed their mothers as they both growled a defensive mumble.

K'Shai tried to collect her thoughts, still staring at two children who were nearly the same age as she in calendar years that had barely stopped suckling their mothers' teats and suddenly a wealth of new differences she never considered flowed into her mind.

"I don't… I don't understand… how…" She stammered for a moment and considered that she never really thought about R'chnt's age.

She knew he was around four-hundred and thirty Earth years based on what he told her, but she had always just assumed he was born so long ago and grew as a human did, and just simply lived longer. When she did the math better, she realized that R'chnt in Yautja years was around seventy, a solid Elder, well matured. She had never really thought that the time difference to that maturity would be so dramatic.

She had imagined her child would gestate for the nine Earth months she was familiar with, grow up to maturity in sixteen years, and continue on to train for the hunt under the guidance of a Leader. She imagined a _normal_ childhood as humans know such things, with obvious conflicts of customs and beliefs. Suddenly, she felt queasy and sick to her stomach as she contemplated the circumstances of her pregnancy and looked to one mother with a growing belly.

"How long does Yautja pregnancy last?"

The response she was told calculated out to roughly five years as K'Shai knew the calendar.

By the time she barely returned to the K'ojol, on weak knees, she was so distressed she ran to the bathroom immediately and vomited over the sunken bowl in the floor that served as both a toilet and shower drain. R'chnt paced in agitation behind her, clearly equally distressed by her sudden onset of illness.

"I'm alright. I'll be OK," she assured him through her tears as she collapsed onto the wet shower floor once it had been rinsed.

"What is wrong, K'Shai? What has happened?"

She looked at him as he crouched before her. Unable to produce words to explain, she simply launched herself against him, wrapping her arms around his powerful shoulders and neck.

She ran her fingers through his heated tresses and pressed her cheek into his temple and shut her eyes. His facial quills lightly tickled her skin as she held him tightly and reorganized her thoughts, trying to stop her hands from shaking and the nauseous feeling from returning.

"I'm not even going to live long enough to see this baby grow up. None of them. I can have more babies than any female Yautja and I won't see any of them grow up." She sobbed once she had explained her day.

Once she was calmer the following day, she and R'chnt visited L'ruch. While R'chnt himself was not keen on receiving medical care from L'ruch, he was very much insistent on K'Shai receiving the care she needed.

Neh'rti preferred that K'Shai's pregnancy be managed by the female elder healer, but K'Shai just felt more comfortable with L'ruch. She liked his quirky and comical nature as opposed to the disgruntled and pushy nature of the female healer.

L'ruch reminded her that there was no base of reference for a hybrid offspring. "It will have characteristics of both genetic structures, K'Shai," he said.

"I can tell you right now, your offspring is healthy. It is growing much faster than a typical Yautja, but I see nothing inherently wrong. There was just no way to know what the child will be like or how quickly it will mature. If the fetus is growing faster than a pureblooded Yautja would, it is possible the child itself will mature faster, too."

The visit with L'ruch made her feel a little better about the future, at least for a while until K'Shai had returned to the mei'sa later that day and she brought up the discussion of her offspring to S'ridi, who was amongst several others.

"If it grows faster than a full blooded Yautja, it will probably die faster, too." One of the females concluded, drawing a scathing look from K'Shai.

"It will be as weak as its mother," one of the females scoffed with certainty. "Only strong females should be bred. That offspring is only half Yautja. It will only be half as strong. It probably will have weak flesh and grow tuskless!"

"It will not surive to chiva, K'Shai. Especially outside of the mei'sa. You are securing your child to become ' _eta_. What a proud mark on the Clan she will be."

"That's enough!" S'ridi barked.

K'Shai was agitated by the discussion, and suddenly felt even more angered that S'ridi was the one who had to step in to put an end to it.

The day's events had done nothing to quell the worry she felt over the reality of dying before her child had grown up and now she had other concerns drifting into her head as she sat lock-jawed on the large chair and sunk her teeth into a fruit just to give herself an excuse not to talk.

Living through chiva secured a Yautja's place in the Clan. If any Yautja failed to make it to their Blooding hunt, perhaps because they were too weak to be a worthy example of the species, they were assigned to become 'aseigan.

This could happen even as young as what a human would human would consider a five-year old child. Any female that passed chiva was considered strong and worthy to breed with; apparently every female except K'Shai or her offspring, she thought.

Females valued strength, in each other and in their mates. Because of the singular commitment on their part for child-rearing, females preferred only to breed with the most capable hunters and of course, strongest females garnered the strongest males.

Her child was not even born yet and she was suddenly wondering not only what she would look like, but how capable she would be as a Yautja and how her alien heritage might affect her standing.

The more she thought on it, from her own slowly developing sparring skills which were declared completely insufficient by mostly everyone who watched her, to the females constantly telling her she should remain locked up in the mei'sa like she was too feeble and weak to be out in the ship at all, K'Shai found herself questioning her own strength and growing uncertain that her genetics would ever be accepted, much less those of her hybrid child.

There were plenty of other females who stood behind Neh'rti's shadow, hissing and cursing at K'Shai and maintaining their Yautja superiority over her and _that thing_ in her belly.

The mei'sa had once struck K'Shai as a comfortable community for females to rear their young together. She realized, the more she tried to adjust to life amongst the females, that the community was intended for _Yautja_ females and only Yautja females. Humans and hybrids most definitely not welcome.

"That cannot be true, K'Shai," R'chnt corrected her gently without seeming the least bit aroused by her certainty that she was not welcome in the mei'sa as she explained her fears to him in the quiet darkness of his chambers on the K'ojol.

"I cannot fully speak on female matters, but you are doing well. I have heard many things from many hunters, both males and females. They are impressed with you."

"They are vicious." K'Shai said stalely. "They are condescending, domineering, and just… just… It's just frustrating. I'm trying so hard to understand what I am supposed to do."

"Clearly, you are doing it, even if you do not understand." R'chnt said without missing a beat.

K'Shai smirked at him and could not help but giggle.

"That doesn't really make me feel better you know."

She turned her eyes to her belly, which she stroked with a smile.

"She's going to be alright, though, right? I mean… so many of the females seem to despise the idea of a hybrid in the clan. I'm just worried about what is going to happen to her or to other children we have."

R'chnt clamped a large, taloned, strong hand over both of hers and her abdomen, purring gently as he shifted his body closer to hers.

"K'Shai, you think anxiously on things far beyond your control. Our offspring will be a valued member of the Clan, just as you will discover you are as well."

She accepted his assurances, even if she did not believe them.

"Although, I imagine," he added, "that they were quite surprised to hear you could be bred multiple times."

K'Shai smiled widely, giggling. "Oh, they were completely shocked."

She kissed him slowly, working her way down his jawline to just under his ear as he flattened his body against hers, pushing her backwards under him. She sprawled back on the sofa while he leveled out above her, nudging her with his tusks.

"You know, they keep saying something to me about breeding marks. I don't understand what they mean. I was thinking they meant _stretch marks_ or something, but …"

"What is a _stretch mark?_ " R'chnt asked, not understanding the occasional words of English K'Shai would use in place of Yautjan words she did not know.

He was surprised to hear her ask of breeding marks in a human term, though. Did human males also mark their mates in such a way? He hadn't realized and thought for a moment maybe he had avoiding doing something that was natural to both species. As she explained it further, though, it was most definitely not the same thing. R'chnt chuckled a bit as he discussed the difference.

"Why haven't you done it then?" K'Shai asked.

He gazed at her, stroking her face delicately and pulling his upper tusks apart into a smile. K'Shai whisked some of her hair away from her shoulder, exposing her neck and bare skin to him.

"It's OK. You can." She whispered. "Do you want to do it now?"

R'chnt purred, delighted by her offer, and immediately growing aroused by the soft sound of her voice and the scent she began to emanate, somewhere between nervous curiosity and apprehension.

He quietly extended his mandibles towards her skin, caressing his bony tusks against her smooth neck and shoulder, gliding the three inch long teeth at the end of his mandibles along her delicate sweet skin, as he ticked his upper tusks against the curves of her body. He let her enticing scent whisk into his sinuses as the sensation of her smooth skin tickled his weathered and firm manidbles, but never left a mark.

"Not now, K'Shai. Not now." He said quietly.

Her scent grew stronger as it wafted into him and he continued to stroke her body with his hands and tusks. He slid his fingers down both lengths of her body, across her thighs, between her legs, over her loin cloth, removing the buckle that held it on as he continued his way up her abdomen, across her breasts, watching her heave as she stretched out below him and arched her back, moaning and gasping as he stimulated her into ready acceptance.

In a single move, he carefully guided her off the sofa onto the floor and removed his own belt. His body had healed. He had returned to normal levels of sparring. He was strong and ready to retake his position at the head of his hunting pack again.

He had remained on the _jag'd'atoll_ for K'Shai's sake as well as his own, but the time was upon him to return to the hunt. K'Shai was doing well, far better than she credited herself for, and the offspring was growing strong and healthy.

She stretched her knees apart. She consumed his shaft between her thighs as he slid into her. She moaned and dragged her delicate claws against his firm skin as she shut her eyes and felt him penetrate her, harder and harder, one hand gripped around her thigh, the other propping himself up over her on the floor.

He spread his tusks, dipped his head close towards her, caressed her face with his extended mandibles, allowing his heated skin to glide over hers as she howled below him, huffing in time with his powerful thrusts.

R'chnt's body surged, filling him with delight as he drew out K'Shai's orgasm. He could feel her throbbing against him; her tract swelling around his solid rod, locking him in place as he growled loudly, emptying himself into her with a tingling sensation that left him so relaxed he could barely sit upright afterwards.

He toppled backwards to the floor and K'Shai shifted around and laid into him, her small fingers twirling his fleshy tresses gently until they both fell asleep.


	11. Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"No! You must brace your elbow!"

"I am bracing!" K'Shai snapped.

Her sparring partner swung before she was ready. Neh'rti glared, unimpressed, from the sidelines as she supervised and critiqued. Her opponent's strike caught her off guard, sending K'Shai to the ground. K'Shai grabbed the side of her face, howling in agitation and pain as the rock solid forearm of her opponent collided into her jaw.

"I thought R'chnt has been teaching you to fight," her opponent growled. "Do you spend _any_ time sparring or just mating?"

K'Shai felt herself growing more furious by the moment and could not prevent herself from casting a glaring sneer. She could feel her bones rattling as she nervously took to the middle of the round training dojo again.

She did her best to improvise on the formations she was learning, but she moved slowly, trying to think her way through each action, rigidly avoiding contact and springing around her side of the circular sparring space.

The sparring training R'chnt had been patiently developing with her seemed to go right out the window. K'Shai braced her body and clenched her jaw, trying to channel her frustration that she could not apply the methods he was teaching her in slow motion into real use during a fast-paced spar. Her opponent struck again and again and each time, K'Shai shifted, avoided and tried to counter. She lost her balance and dropped to the ground after narrowly avoiding a powerful blow that probably would have broken her jaw.

"Again!" Neh'rti commanded and K'Shai sprung to her feet with a deep, frustrated sigh. "Keep your back straight, K'Shai. Allow your body to move naturally."

K'Shai barely heard one of the other spectators mutter something about 'natural' meaning on the ground for her. She just glared and gritted her teeth.

"How am I supposed to brace _and_ move naturally?" K'Shai protested. "It makes no sense."

"These are basic moves, K'Shai. Every Yautja is _born_ knowing such things on an instinctive level. Clearly you cannot understand them because you are human."

Somehow, thinking about the toddlers she saw in the mei'sa falling over each other clumsily, she doubted that, but she turned again to her partner. Neh'rti did not care in the least that K'Shai was now bruised and hurting.

The goal of the training session was not to cause serious injury; any Yautja was expected to endure a good thrashing and blood loss during most spars with no complaint. She tried again, feeling her nerves fray a bit as she did so.

R'chnt had only been gone a few rotations and K'Shai was already counting the days until he returned for supplies. When he left with W'rsa, he assured her he would return to the _jag'd'atoll_ personally and see her and he allayed her worries over him reentering the war zone by teaching her how to use the computer console in his chambers.

With it, she could not only track his whereabouts, but also, by direct link up to his _awu'asa_ , she knew his vital signs and she could communicate with him.

It was comforting know that he was alive, strong, and well, even though it had only been three days on Earth, according to her watch which she pulled out from a drawer and started eyeing again. She placed it on the computer console and the first time she looked at it, she was quite surprised to find that the date was January eigth.

A new year had begun and she had not even given the passing of time a second thought. She knew she had been aboard the ship for a while, but time passed differently amongst the Yautja. The child kept track of time for her according to her own schedule, growing steadily over what K'Shai realized now had been more than two months. It had been six weeks since R'chnt had been gored nearly to death and she left Earth with him.

It was amazing, she thought, how strong and solid he had healed in such a short period of time. She had watched him in the days before he left, sparring with others, whirling and dropping and jumping and spinning, growling and bellowing, without ever looking the least bit fatigued. On his last day before he returned to Earth she stood in awestruck wonder watching him during a spar amongst three other elders.

Each of the aged males wielded two weapons, some long like spears, some short like sais, some swords, some dual-bladed axe-types. Each of the fighters used them in a manner that suited the function of the weapon and the style of the warrior that possessed them. The four Yautja spun and twirled and thrusted around the kehrite in a fierce display that made it hard to tell it was actually a friendly spar.

The weapons clanged and banged together and sparks flew from the impact and yet none of the hunters slipped up so much as to give a paper-cut to one of their opponents as they moved, dancing in utter control with pure focus and purpose.

They also made it look easy; far easier than the simple sparring routines she had been enduring amongst the females since he left. She was beginning to understand the difference in how Yautja taught each other and how R'chnt was handling her training.

When K'Shai made an error, it was usually immediately followed by physical contact; punishment for failing. She was bruised and black and blue, and most of them were just from not holding a position long enough the right way, rather like a teacher who slapped a student on the knuckles if they didn't hold their hands right while playing an instrument.

The Yautja seemed to know only one method of training; do it right or face the consequences. They expected acceptance of those consequences without rebuttle as well.

R'chnt had never once struck her, not even by a slip up through a motion. He displayed incredible control over his own body and she trusted him that he could lash out towards her full force and end a fraction of an inch from her skin and not make contact.

He was also endlessly patient with her and encouraged her to develop her body and reactions naturally over time. He seemed to _just know_ that she could not hold up to full-on Yautja training and avoided not only causing her discomfort and pain, but also pushing her too hard. He was content to make her training last a hundred years.

The females seemed to enjoy proving that she was not on par with Yautja methods and obviously expected her to learn and succeed in minutes. K'Shai tried her best to understand their thoughts on the matter, though; she was already Blooded.

R'chnt had deemed that she had already survived enough to justify the mark being branded on her forehead. Although she had skipped Yautja sparring 101, she had essentially survived the equivalent of a _chiva_ based on her experiences alone. The females expected that she would be able to hold her own in a simple, friendly, _easy spar_.

She knew she would need to try harder and with R'chnt gone to Earth, she was essentially _stuck_ doing things their way. K'Shai's daily routine was already starting to take shape. It took a bit of adjustment on part of the females to understand that K'Shai needed more sleep and more meals than they did, but they were successfully adapting their expectations of her based upon those needs.

Though they had already been familiarized with some of the differences that's K'Shai's humanity had over the Yautja, she was now living in the mei'sa and the females were beginning to see what life was like with her on a daily basis.

They were conscious of her pregnancy and ensured that she had the rest and food she needed to be healthy in order to gestate the offspring. Neh'rti especially, despite her rough manner and sneering dominance, was hyper-vigilant about the growing hybrid in K'Shai's womb and expected her to have daily check-ups to keep track of the pregnancy.

The females were curious about her and did question her frequently. She tried to answer to the best of her abilities whenever she was asked about anything biological, physiological, or cultural. She felt too little lacking in her ability to respond to the questions if she simply did not know an answer. Had she somehow known what her future would have been like, she would have paid more attention in biology and science classes.

As it was, the Yautja had very little use or care for her interest in fashion design, although that conversation did spark some unhelpful comments from the females, as she explained to them about her life on Earth.

"Maybe you are best suited to making garments!" One of the mothers barked mockingly.

"I can get you started into it, K'Shai," another offered. "Leave the hunting to other females. I am sure living amongst us must be difficult _for a human_."

K'shai felt her face flush. She turned red with anger and embarrassment in a moment. Later, S'ridi, having overheard the conversation did approach K'Shai in a helpful way while they walked through a corridor.

"If you chose to pursue something other than hunting, K'Shai, it may be best. You can fill a valuable role in the Clan and rear your offspring in the mei'sa."

K'Shai eyed her widely, flickering furiously, but realized S'ridi was trying to offer up an alternative way of life for her and she sighed.

"That's exactly what _they_ expect, isn't it? For me to just live in the mei'sa for the rest of my life?"

S'ridi nodded.

"Almost all females remain attached to the mei'sa to raise their offspring. Very few females hunt after breeding and those who do charge others with caring for their offspring. Do you really plan to do both? You say you can have multiple breedings. How will you hunt and breed? Do you think you are strong enough to breed many times, hunt, and live out of the mei'sa with a male who knows nothing about child-rearing?"

K'Shai pondered it all for a moment, unable to really come with a solid response.

"On Earth women have babies and work along with the men. That's just how it is. I just want to be with R'chnt and raise our children like a family. I'm not going to live in the mei'sa away from R'chnt for the rest of my life!" K'Shai snapped, agitated. "And what? Just see him when it's time to breed? That's not how humans do things. I'm not going to live away from him."

"We'll make this work." Her voice lowered and she muttered. "Somehow."

"Well, you are certainly confident and strong, K'Shai. You may want to think well on just how much you defy the Yautja way." S'ridi warned. "You are with us, not on Earth. Your actions reflect on R'chnt and your offspring, and the entire Clan, along with yourself. The entire planet is now watching this Clan to see what happens with the human living in it."

K'Shai suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She hadn't considered any of that.

"Is it really that uncommon for females to hunt and raise children?" She asked, exasperated. It seemed to her that she would never understand Yautja ways and they would never understand her human need to be with R'chnt and her offspring as a family.

"It is." S'ridi said simply.

"Hunters leave and may never return. Females that breed and then leave for the hunt may never be seen again. It falls on the rest of us to raise their offspring. It takes great strength to raise our offspring and oversee the Clan. You still have much to learn and the half breed offspring you carry will have great challenges ahead."

K'Shai pressed her lips together for a moment in silent consideration then questioned S'ridi more.

"Why does everyone think this baby isn't going to be able to manage just because she's half human?" She said with a little snap.

"K'Shai, your offspring will need to do more than _manage_." S'ridi rebutted. "She will need to grow strong and prove herself as a capable Yautja, fierce and powerful. She must prove your bloodlines are worthy."

"You're right. That exactly why she needs a father." K'Shai said firmly.

S'ridi ticked her tusks and turned on her way. "Many challenges," she mumbled.

"Well, it is as R'chnt said," K'Shai added in as they continued and S'ridi tipped her head towards her in consideration. "I must hunt. There is no other way."

"R'chnt is very wise, K'Shai." S'ridi added in agreement.

K'Shai stroked her belly for a moment, quietly pondering the growing fetus. "She'll never be accepted otherwise."

S'ridi paused and glanced at her, considering her for a moment.

"Perhaps not. It is an unusual situation, K'Shai. I suppose you will have to adjust the same as we must."

K'Shai mumbled words in English that S'ridi did not understand but she did hear R'chnt's name amongst them.

"Such a curious thing…" she said, resuming on her way to their destination.

"What?"

"You and R'chnt have a bond that is hard to understand. You can mate and breed many times, and you want to remain with him. Do all human mates remain paired for life?"

"Yes. Well… no. I suppose not. Not always. I mean, generally yes, but not always." K'Shai rambled, trying to come up with the best response. "We do raise children in families. It just isn't the same thing as the Yautja. I guess it's hard to explain."

S'ridi glanced at her, obviously dissatisfied with K'Shai's explanation but K'Shai offered nothing further.

The ways of the Yautja were too different and any way she tried to clarify human beliefs seemed to only confuse them more, which slowly made K'Shai realize why R'chnt always called almost every human custom confusing and complex. She had never even considered for a moment that her normal way of life; the things she was most familiar with could be called confusing or hard to understand until she actually tried to explain them to people who had a completely different culture.

It seemed to her that the Yautja way was far more complex than she had imagined it, and as she pondered the not-so-fine-line between males and females and the general lack of compassion the Yautja elicited, she found their way harder and harder to understand. She let her thoughts drift back to R'chnt as she returned to her chambers in the mei'sa and considered all that she had learned in just a few days' time.

As time moved on, she continued to try to pay close attention to all she was taught and all she observed so she could understand Yautja ways while hoping to make them understand why to her, life without R'chnt was unacceptable.

She spent her first waking hours of each day engaged in learning groups, amongst the children and their mothers, learning about culture and spirituality and keeping company with the other mothers in the community bath houses and sitting rooms, learning about the nature of raising and caring for offspring.

She was able to meet her needs for rest and food without any issue and at least despite all the differences between them, the Yautja had accepted K'Shai's differences physical requirements. When it came to being healthy and bearing a successful cub, the females were surprisingly accommodating.

As a Blooded female, there was nowhere on the ship she could not venture into, but the females continued to maintain that she should learn to remain within the mei'sa and levels of the ship restricted to females and youngsters only.

It infuriated K'Shai that they seemed to always consistently imply, no matter how hard she trained, that she was too weak or frail to even walk down a corridor without supervision. Although she had proven herself worthy as far as R'chnt was concered to carry the Blooded mark of the Clan, she could not help feel like she was as disregarded as much an 'aseigan by the females.

She made it a point to get her meals in one of the cantinas and take her time walking the corridors between the mei'sa, the cantina, and the docking bay, which seemed to infuriate Neh'rti and the other elder females daily. The younger females seemed to delight in K'Shai's direct refusal of the Yautja way, as if they were waiting for the situation to implode on itself.

Her afternoons were spent in the _kehrite_ working on sparring maneuvers and watching more experienced fighters as well as supervising some of the older children with other mothers while they played and interacted for more aggressively than the toddlers.

She worked on her own fighting motions, slowly honing her muscles and training her body to do as R'chnt had begun to show her and as she watched how the females taught their children, the differences between theirs and R'chnt's methods of teaching became clearer to her.

Once again, she faced off in a supervised spar with a young Blooded female while Neh'rti and three others watched eagerly. They were sparring by hand, though the line between friendly and educational, and outright brutal and potentially dangerous was quite thin.

K'Shai watched her opponent, trying hard to stop her heart from eroding away her chest wall as it thundered away while the females on the sidelines growled and urged each opponent to make a move. Much like how they taught their offspring, the females focused on sparring that developed strength and superiority through brute force. K'Shai had seen it now over and over amongst the youngsters.

The children were urged to simply be the strongest and it seemed to be all they could really understand. Their education into fighting was brutal and unrefined and the females now urging the spar in front of them between K'Shai and her two-meter tall opponent, were attempting to provoke a fierce attack.

R'chnt, tempered with wisdom, age, and experience, had learned to refine his skills through necessity. As K'Shai watched her opponent circle the kehrite facing off with her, the differences made more sense.

When R'chnt was young, he learned to fight exactly the way K'Shai was being taught now. When he prepared for chiva under the direction of an experienced leader, he learned to hone the brute skills he had been taught through his childhood.

For R'chnt specifically, his mental acuity grew and he took his training to an entirely new level that most of the young hunters she had witnessed aboard the atoll likely never would. She had a hard time even imagining any of the youngsters in the mei'sa would grow to be anywhere near as capable as R'chnt.

Although it was hard for her to understand, in the time it took to grow to the age of the blooding hunt, while on Earth a full century would have passed, the Yautja would only then be about as mentally developed as a human teenager.

R'chnt, able to use the refined education of his own Leader to survive chiva, had continued on to improve his skill and further challenge and train and hone himself until the point that he had become so adept of a warrior, he was sought to become a teacher of others; a Leader himself. For him, teaching came naturally, she thought. For the females, savagely barking out encouragement for fierce attacks came naturally.

K'Shai's hands shook as she moved in again, trying to counter her opponet's brute force attack. The strong female fought in a way that K'Shai had not yet learned to handle. The females expected her to know how to fight or learn as she went along while they urged her, because this was the manner that the youngest children learned.

Because she was a Blooded hunter, they expected her to have these basic skills and know how to defeat her opponent without fail and audibly scoffed at the idea that she just _wasn't ready_.

Again her opponent moved in with a threatening growl and jabbed her clawed hand forward. K'Shai leapt aside, avoiding the contact and continued to circle warily, avoiding the confrontation for noticeably long enough that the small crowd of spectators began to mock her for it. Egged on by the calls about it being a _spar_ , K'Shai moved in on the offensive for once.

Clearly being defensive wasn't working and holding outside of physical reach of her opponent as they both circled the sparring ring was hardly a worthy endeavor. K'Shai recalled one move that R'chnt had started teaching her in the last few days before he had left, and she thought if she could just get the opening, maybe she could perform it.

She moved in, preparing to attempt to grab at her opponent's arm and try to use her own body as leverage to pull her opponent off her feet by sweeping her body behind her and kicking out her opponent's legs, using her arm as a pendulum to gain momentum. It sounded like a plausible theory. Although she had yet to master the move against R'chnt, she was hoping maybe the raging anger and frustration fueling her now might produce a different outcome.

It did.

Her opponent, somewhat taken back by K'Shai's sudden and final switch to offensive, whipped around to avoid the contact. K'Shai did manage to grab hold of the intended arm and tried to swing her body around behind her circling opponent.

The sheer force the Yautja moving away was enough to cause her to topple back down to the ground, more from her failure to keep her own momentum flowing properly than anything her opponent really did. K'Shai laid there for a moment, completely humiliated as Neh'rti loomed over her sneering, bringing the spar to an end for the day.

"If you are going to fall so many times, you may injure the offspring. You must learn to steady yourself. You must learn to stand firm _on_ your feet. Not on your back."

K'Shai grimaced and pulled herself up to her feet, angry and humiliated and grateful for the end of the session. She was directed out of the kehriteand joined S'ridi in the corridor, who walked with her to the elder healer's lab.

"I don't think I'll ever make Neh'rti happy." She said dismissively to S'ridi.

"Are you trying to?" S'ridi asked.

"I thought I…" K'Shai started but stopped mid-sentence, not really knowing what to say.

They rounded a corner and turned into the healer's lab and K'Shai was directed by the grumpy and unimpressed elder to sit on the exam table, while she surveyed her and ensured the health of the offspring.

"You are both fine. You should eat again, rebuild your strength. I suggest that you do not engage in such matches as this child develops further."

"I don't think I'll be able to get out of sparring," K'Shai said to the healer as she hopped off the table.

"Well, then you may want to consider _not losing_." The healer sneered.

K'Shai glared at her, but said nothing. She and S'ridi made their way to the cantina for a brief meal before they headed to the bath house.

K'Shai grabbed up a plate of fruits to take with her, which she continued to eat while she soaked in the nearly empty room, before returning to R'chnt's ship just to take a cold shower before making her way back to the mei'sa for the night.

"If you insist on leaving the mei'sa, K'Shai, you should at least not leave S'ridi's company." Neh'rti reprimanded her the moment she had returned. "She will watch over you."

K'Shai felt a little like a kid trying to sneak into the house without getting caught by her mother after being out past her bedtime. Neh'rti accosted her the second the mei'sa door opened and reduced K'Shai again to nothing more than a spattering toddler. She did not want to be _watched over_ , nor did she want her comings and goings monitored constantly.

The Clan ship itself was fairly quiet and Neh'rti's objections to her being out in the corridors alone seemed unwarranted. Not only were the corridors almost completely empty anyway, K'Shai was quite sure that the 'aseigan and workers had all gotten the message loud and clear through R'chnt's displays that she was off limits. Even though he was not on the ship, his looming shadow over her made a lasting impression.

The hunters that she did see here and there did their usual gawking and chittering about who she was, but kept to themselves and well away from her. It was the females, ironically, that were giving K'Shai the hardest time.

K'Shai returned to her chambers in the mei'sa, a private accommodation the likes of which was not typically assigned to a young blood. She found the silent still of the room unappealing. She returned instead to one of the communal sitting rooms where she found four females all with offspring of various ages.

While she enjoyed and needed the lonely comforts of her assigned sleeping chambers in the mei'sa, or the echoing silence of the K'ojol, she was grateful for the company at that moment, even if only to sit in a chair eating fruit while not talking to anyone. She stepped into the room and received a few disinterested looks from the others as she slid into an open chair and curled her ankles under her butt, taking up the seat with her entire body.

For a while, K'Shai listened to the conversation, eaves dropping more aptly as she was not included in it. They were talking about their offspring and K'Shai listened intently, learning bits of information every time any of them spoke.

Eventually one of the females turned to her and curiously, if not a bit disparagingly, asked her about some more human customs. K'Shai sat up, smiled softly and joined the conversation.

Most of the females, especially the younger ones, seemed quite curious about her, as she was curious about them. The culture and customs were so different than anything K'Shai was used to, and the more the Yautja found out about human nature, the more they felt the same.

Each tried to understand the other's way, and as time passed, slowly the differences were becoming skewed. It was slow progress, but an understanding was beginning to develop, and K'Shai was at least grateful for that.

She continued to venture through the Clan ship, despite many of the females strongly worded suggestions that she stopped going out alone, especially as the offspring grew. They did not understand why K'Shai was compelled to return to the K'ojol so frequently; daily. K'Shai did not even attempt to explain, she simply did as she wished.

She would contact R'chnt in private from his ship, and sometimes fall asleep in his chambers, clinging to one of his bio helmets, which helped her sleep. Though it had been cleaned, the one that he was wearing when he was injured still carried his scent in the metal.

R'chnt had selected a new one for his return to Earth and K'Shai, reluctant to bring the biohelmet to the mei'sa with her, would instead wrap up against it in her arms and rest in his bed on the hunt ship.

For two weeks, K'Shai would watch hunters arrive back for supplies and medical care and listen to the stories they brought with them. Sometimes the _jag'd'atoll_ was quiet; empty corridors and vacant rooms. Sometimes, the hunters trickled in in small groups at a time, and sometimes, they returned in droves.

The more hunters that returned at a single time, the more the energy on the Clan ship seemed to change. The larger groups almost always brought with them good news of the way the hunt was progressing. Of course, for the Yautja, _good news_ did not always mean no loss of life.

As with all other things, the Yautja also had very different views on death. They returned with wild stories of hunters who had fallen, retelling their final moments and how they brought honor to the Clan with demonstrations of their strength and bravery.

Such things elevated a bloodline, and any particularly noteworthy victories, or deaths became a passable part of the lineage, bragging rights for the hunters, essentially. They served as both boasting points for status elevation and breeding.

Though the Yautja did not mourn in the sense that humans thought of, K'Shai did observe some of their funeral practices. Whenever it was possible, a fallen hunter was collected and returned to the Clan ship. The morgue was packed. K'Shai had ventured into it with Neh'rti once, and once was more than enough.

Hunters with severed limbs, bodies torn in two, heads missing, bodiless heads, and leaking internal organs adorned the morgue in every available space. Each body, though, was carefully prepped and laid out. Neh'rti had a daily duty, along with the other council members, to pray over the newest bodies before they were incinerated.

Only the highest ranking of the deceased would be stored for eventual return to the Clan for cremation in a public ritual; a funeral essentially. All others were disposed of aboard the Clan ship, but not before their Honored hunting spirit was prayed for. K'Shai watched the ceremony once, saddened and disturbed, and chose not to return to it again.

The Yautja were unsympathetic towards loss of life. They accepted death readily; it was as natural to them as breathing. There was no question that if a hunter ventured out, he could likely not return. They were unphased by the trauma, the blood, the scent of the bodies that wafted through the levels as each new one, sometimes rancid, was returned to the Clan ship.

However, they believed that each fallen hunter brought Honor to the Clan by fighting, and dying, so each one was deserving of, and received, honored prayer. It was an odd thing to see the prayer ritual performed so eloquently, but yet, there was no real display of sadness or sympathy.

There were no sobbing mothers crying over their dead child. There were no funeral notices posted, no list of names of soldiers who gave their life in the battle, no crowds of people trying to check and see if their friend or loved one was on the list.

They were honored, but not mourned. They were respected, but not loved. They were valued as hunters in the Clan, but there was no attachment to them beyond that. Their hunting comrades spoke of their accomplishments in a delighted, boastful way, with no real consideration for the fact that they had lost their lives doing it.

It was alarming to K'Shai, and her experience in the morgue spurred her to spend that night alone on the K'ojol, cradling R'chnt's biohelmet in one arm and her unborn offspring in the other.


	12. Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

The morning he was due back, K'Shai waited on pins and needles in the docking bay for the shuttle.

She watched one shuttle arrive and three hunters depart from it. She paced as a second shuttle lowered itself into its landing spot and the ramp opened. K'Shai craned her neck eagerly and then returned to her anticipatory pacing when two badly beaten young hunters limped off, looking positively cheerful despite their wounds.

Yet another shuttle soon found its way through the force field at the far end of the docking bay and it glided smoothly, quietly, just a few feet above the metal floor like a hover board before it touched down, back of the shuttle facing away from K'Shai towards the far wall.

K'Shai moved around another shuttle and peered around the back of that one, looking down the bay past four other shuttles to the now open back ramp of the one that had landed, and a brimmed with a smile as R'chnt noticed her and approached.

She did not hide her excitement to see him. She trotted over to him and threw her arms around his neck, allowing him to lift her off her feet as she cried out audibly, embracing him around his shoulders and neck as tightly as she could and pressing her face into his cheek.

He would only stay aboard the Clan ship for barely half a rotation, so he tended to his resupply needs first, barking growling orders at the 'aseigan who were already approaching to get their direction, before he turned and exited the docking bay with K'Shai.

They travelled together down a corridor that linked both docking bays, the shuttle one and the one for the larger ships, and returned to the K'ojol for a while so R'chnt could not only take advantage of his private soaking tub alone with K'Shai, but also select his own new armor, as he preferred to do.

He looked fit and energized, bringing with him highly detailed accounts of where he had travelled, sizes of the hives that were destroyed and updates on the rest of his group and any other hunting parties they had met up with along the way, all of which K'Shai listened to attentively while she soaked with him and oiled his tresses.

She found the scents of the oils he preferred soothing to her, and the simple, mindless action of massaging them into his tresses was enough to focus away stress for both of them. R'chnt eventually quieted down and purred pleasantly, basking in the heated pool with his head tipped back into K'Shai's chest.

Eventually, they returned to the rest of the chambers and K'Shai watched him as he shifted through his armor. His muscular body glistened in the amber light of the room, steaming slightly as the hot water met with only slightly cooler ambient air.

He noticed her watching him separating out pieces of armor and leather that was damaged or dirty into piles to be cleaned, to be replaced, to be repaired.

R'chnt was incredibly particular about his armor, and K'Shai knew he would spend a large portion of his time back aboard the ship carefully cleaning the pieces he intended to reuse, reviewing all of it for function, maintaining its needs personally as he preferred, and sharpening his own blades exactly the way he liked them.

He was quirky, she had learned, based on comments of others. Most preferred to let the 'aseigan and metal workers handle cleaning and repairs and maintenance, but she knew that R'chnt, with his many oddities, was also predisposed to the mindset that allowed the two of them to be together in the first place.

He did things differently; his own way, and whatever he chose to do, he did in a commanding way.

He turned to her and clicked his tusks together in eagerness as she approached him, dropping her eyes to scan his body as her hands reached towards him, one lightly grasping his wrist while the other tickled its way from his sternum to his groin.

R'chnt caught her _dai-shui_ building. It was strong enough from the moment she saw him, but as she eased herself into him, her readiness, her growing arousal, was intoxicating. Enriched by the Yautja blood within her, the scent was an incredibly Yautjan musk, almost overriding her natural human scent, and clearly her pregnancy was not stopping her from desiring further mating.

R'chnt smiled and clicked deeply. One of the first things he had noticed about her when she greeted him upon his return was the disappearance of her alien scent. She had obviously been keeping herself well, bathing in Yautja lotions and oils, grooming herself the way she preferred to ensure that she was well coated in familiar scents.

She looked healthier, stronger, bright-eyed, happy to see him, and the offspring in her, he noticed was growing well and infusing its mother with scents and power and strength unaccustomed to all of them.

She had managed to distract him again from organizing his armor and he laid her down on the bed, stretching her out below him as he crawled above her and straddled her. He lowered his head towards her body, tracing her muscles and soft skin with his tusks, clicking excitedly as he inhaled and drew in her scent.

He spread his tusks wide, nearly wide enough to stretch clear across her abdomen, his upper tusks just wrapping her from rib to rib as he felt her caress his head and tresses, moaning pleasingly and eagerly with anticipation.

He shifted his position over her, running one hand down the length of her body, over her abdomen and between her thighs, dragging his talons along every inch of her before splitting her legs and shifting himself between them.

Clicking loudly, completely aroused, inhaling the scent of her wetness, he lowered himself against her, finding her ready and waiting opening without delay. K'Shai exhaled a high pitched moan, shut her eyes and tilted her head back as she gaped her jaw and quickly started panting in rhythm with his thrusts and withdrawals.

His body surged with a rush of sensations that he immediately decided had been entirely too long since he experienced last.

He had gone from accepting life as it was, with little mating, plenty of pent up hormones, and the almost certain risk of injury during the process, to meeting K'Shai and experiencing the overpowering levels of pleasure she elicited in him; something he never even imagined possible.

Enjoying her alien body, her soft touch, her sweet scent had not only grown on him, but had hypnotized him. Now, after so long without contact with her, he hadn't even realized how much he was craving it again until he laid her down before him once more and felt himself inside her, listened to her moan, absorbed her scent.

Though his visit to the Clan ship was brief, and it was obvious K'Shai was unsettled by his departure, they remained in contact whenever he could and as the rotations of her world passed, K'Shai continued to monitor his whereabouts from his hunt ship. He returned to the Clan ship as he needed for supplies and as the weeks passed, she had begun to display new capabilities and a deeper understanding of the people she was living amongst.

He could not understand her complaints, which she shared with only him in private. She still maintained that Neh'rti was plotting to eventually kill her in her sleep.

How K'Shai could think the Clan leader herself would be capable of something so dishonorable, he did not understand. It was obvious to him that Neh'rti was handling K'Shai in a manner as expected of a Yautja and from all he had been told, K'Shai was adjusting well.

What he heard from the hunters and from Neh'rti herself was that K'Shai was strong, perhaps a bit defiant, but no more so than the typical youngblood. Though she was proving herself more and more every day, she was very much a youngblood.

She had a fire in her that most of the Yautja would never have thought humans were capable of. K'Shai's behavior, which was slowly growing more assertive, aggressive, and dominant, was helping to make Yautja who never had hunted humans understand why they were such challenging prey. They were far more intelligent and fierce than most people realized and K'Shai was a prime example of that.

She was learning quickly, in culture, language, and sparring, which also proved the intelligence capabilities of the alien species. She had become quite adept at working the computers in the K'ojol and was now monitoring topographical conditions, weather, and life signs of his hunting pack and the other two units they were working in conjuction with.

Every now and then, K'Shai would start filling him in on details about the locations he was travelling through; names of what she called _cities_ , which as best as he understood it were similar to Clans, though erratically patterned yet interconnected.

He learned that a human might live in one and earn money from a job in another; as confusing a way of life as he had come to expect of her species, he thought.

"Well, it would be like if you had to always go hunt in the same place every day," she tried to explain to him.

"You would leave for the hunting grounds and when you were done, you would return back home every day."

"The hunting grounds would go dry if Yautja hunted them repetitively." He explained to the best of his understanding why what she was explaining to him wouldn't work. "It does neither hunter nor prey any good to hunt an area into emptiness."

"Well, it isn't like you're actually _hunting_. I just mean that … it's just how human life is. We live in one place and we work in another." She said with an amused grin; he wasn't getting the concept.

"I mean, when you're home on Yaut, don't you live at home and travel to the Clan city to … hunt… or teach?"

"You will see. It is not as you explain," he said without any further clarification.

The conversation was brief, but she ended it with a smile, glad to have a few minutes while he rested to hear his voice. She sat back in the massively oversized chair, ankles tucked under butt as she stroked her belly and glanced at the wrist watch sitting on the alien computer console.

She considered the watch for a moment and thought about the single drawer which contained a cut off pair of jeans-turned-Daisy-Dukes, underwear, a bra, a tank top and two shirts, a jacket, socks, and her boots, all cleaned.

Besides those, she had the knife which was once embedded in her thigh, a rifle and a handgun. The weapons were neatly displayed now, on the wall near the bed, in a prominently noticeable position; trophies and reminders of a way of life she was moving away from.

The digital numbers and little display with the date and day of the week on the watch now looked no different to her than the Yautja writing all over the computer panels before her. She glanced from the watch's little black rice-grain digits displaying February twentieth, and letting her know it was two-thirty in the morning in South Carolina, where R'chnt was now.

She had taken a moment to mention the beauty of the shorelines and he chortled that she had informed him of her enjoyment of beaches more than once. Although she did not recall, she knew his memory was rock solid, so if he said so, it must be true.

Unlike the youngsters who were still developing, once a Yautja was fully mature, they learned quickly. They remembered sounds, patterns, locations, directions, words, and scents immediately and were able to reproduce them before they even understood context. R'chnt could recall details down to the minutiae of hunts from almost three hundred years ago as if they just happened.

To K'Shai, the days were blurring together, filled with ever growing frustrations dealing with the females, especially Neh'rti, getting daily check-ups on the health of her growing daughter, and learning the Yautja way, that she barely remembered what day she had done what, or how the newest bruise had even developed.

She glanced over her belly once again then eyed the puckered scar on the outer portion of her left thigh, from where she had been stabbed.

Her eyes flowed down to her ankles as she sat up straight and she considered the damage to her right one that had once been grabbed and bitten by a _kainde amedha_. She scanned once again to the computer console and considered the alien symbols.

The lighted panels before her, which once seemed like nothing more than mystifying cryptograms and hieroglyphs impossible for her little human mind to sort out and see words, were now just as clear to her as the digits on the watch.

She wondered how much longer the war would continue. She wondered why she bothered keeping the watch in view; did it really matter what time of day it was on the giant blue world that loomed outside the Clan ship?

She barely even looked at it anymore, save for the occasional time she passed a window that faced it. As it was, the K'ojol was situated in a dock bay, with the front window facing the bay and the window in R'chnt's chambers facing a bulk head wall.

The mei'sa had viewing windows, but in the wrong direction of Earth. Only from time to time if she took an outer corridor and made a long route around the ship to the cantina would she see the planet from the portals that lined the corridor.

She could not even recall when the last time she bothered to make such a circumvented route around the Clan ship.

She stood and retrieved her clothes and shoes from the drawer they had been placed in and looked them over, stopping at a reflective metal surface that served her as a full-length mirror and surveyed herself.

The bulge of her abdomen was beginning to show. As the baby developed bigger and stronger with each new day, she had begun to feel her movements. The female healer and L'ruch both maintained that the offspring, though for all appearances healthy and robust, was growing faster than a pureblood Yautja.

The pregnancy was unprecedented and there was no way to know what was normal or not. So long as both mother and child seemed healthy, there was no cause for concern.

Her body was changing, too. She glanced over her frame, once so suffering from lack of food that every rib was visible, every protrusion of spinal process, and the ridges of her hip bones and clavicles all so easy to see under her dirty, pale, and battered integument.

Now, she was firmer, muscular, clean, and basted in lavish scents from elegant oils and lotions that made her skin shine.

She cradled her human attire in her arms and noticed how peculiar it was that the clothes she once relished in and had planned her whole life around now seemed so awkward, heavy, and cumbersome compared to the sleek, almost satiny lightweight leathers of the body-hugging bikini style garments she wore now.

She had gotten so used to being barefoot, without underwear, and sleeping nude, that now the Earthly garments just seemed completely unnecessary and restrictive, as R'chnt had once described them to her; superfluous and confusing.

Her skin was getting darker, too. Although she had not seen the sun weeks, the heated amber hued lamps that kept the Clan ship at a comfortable living level for the Yautja emitted just enough artificial sunlight to slowly bake her skin into a tan that would have made magazine cover models jealous.

She looked over her head. Her long black hair, which had grown in the last few months, apparently nourished by the highly nutritious diet she now lived on, shined lustfully thanks to the caramel-smelling shampoo she had taken to using.

Between her silky alien leather garments, the soothing tingly and moisturizing lotions and oils, the artificially created perfect tan, hot soaking baths, cold showers, satiny sleeping sheets, fur stuffed pillows, continual fitness regimes, and highly nutritious and completely organic foods, K'Shai could not help but to admire the differences in Yautja life over the human way.

Her reflection was somewhere in between both. She was living in a way that humans aspired for, to the extent of paying small fortunes to experience even just for a weekend, and it was the normal way of life for the aliens who she now lived amongst.

She smiled softly and turned from R'chnt's chambers, left the K'ojol and found her way to one of the work rooms on a lower level of the _jag'd'atoll_.

Two workers glanced up at her as she entered an incineration room, visibly apprehensive as they surveyed her. One of them stepped over to her as if trying to wedge himself between her and the giant round chamber at the back of the room, as if she was incapable of realizing the unit was heated up to about the level of a small sun.

K'Shai looked at him, stiffening a bit at her interpretation of his approach and instead shoved her garments to him, nodding to the incineration chamber. The room was so loud she would have had to shout to make him hear, so she said nothing.

Gestures were far less rude and easier to understand. He took the clothes and boots and K'Shai watched him open a door and shove the clothing into the incinerator with long tools, then turned and left without a word.

By the time R'chnt had returned to the ship once again, K'Shai greeted him eagerly and while he came bearing news of the hunt, she had her own news to inform him.

She had been feeling stronger each and every day, like a burst of energy and power from the growing fetus and she excitedly guided his hand over her belly to feel the baby kicking, a brimming smile on her face.

R'chnt watched K'Shai with a satisfied gaze and surveyed his growing child. The offspring was large enough now that K'Shai's sparring training had dwindled down to non-existent. Although he knew that she would not be able to continue training at a physical level during pregnancy, he was not sure why she seemed so relieved about it as she discussed with him other ways she was learning in lieu of sparring.

She told him of her human garments that she had burned, although she kept the watch on the computer console in his ship, he had noticed when he returned to get different armor.

He was pleased by all he saw and heard. Even her stories to him about her activities in the mei'sa and aboard the ship were changing. The reports he heard from his network of watchful contacts had all brought him word that K'Shai was transitioning well, proving her strength and ability to adapt to Yautja life.

She went with him about his business, bringing a helmet to a weapons maker to have it repaired after it had been cracked in half from side to side during a fight and also depositing a heavily damaged spear on the table before the worker for repair as well.

"Who's were they?" K'Shai asked.

"Ch'nuk-de," R'chnt responded, telling her briefly the fourth ranked hunter in his group endured a grueling fight and pridefully came out the victor.

They found their way, after a short while, to the cantina while the shuttle he had arrived in was being filled with new armor and weapons and food for his pack.

The cantina was almost bursting at the seams with activity.

The hunters on Earth would return in erratic numbers and intervals, and this time, R'chnt's shuttle arrived back along in a group of ten.

While the shuttles usually only carried a trio of returning hunters, and maybe a few recovered corpses, this time, the shuttles came back with a dozen or so living and dead per trip.

The shuttles, running on total self-guided control, simply scuttled back and forth as hunters called for them. Groups returned from all over Earth and as K'Shai listened in to their conversations and joined in a few amongst males that R'chnt approved of, she realized she was hearing stories of hunts from places like Brazil, Africa, and Russia.

When a trio of female hunters strode into the doorway, the place fell silent, and K'Shai too, eyed them. Any male Yautja was truly a jaw dropping sight to behold. Their power, their deadliness was unquestioning, and even the shortest of them still towered over her, including the 'aseigan and workers.

When the three females entered the room and K'Shai had the first chance to actually see what she had only heard about, she immediately realized all the stories she had heard were far from descriptive enough.

All three of the female hunters stood easily a full foot over R'chnt. Muscular and far more fit than any of the other females she had seen in the mei'sa, even Neh'rti herself, the three huntresses left no mistake at all why males both revered and feared them.

They walked into the cantina and the aisle cleared out to let them through; 'aseigan and honored hunter alike jumping out of the way at the buffet area to allow them first right to anything they wanted.

The females all had many piercings around their heads and tusks, some interconnected with chains in two or three sections. They had rings through their tusks and lower jaw bones, and dumbbell-shaped rods through their cranial ridges. Their bodies bore heavy tattoos like branding that was beautifully and intricately inscribed a deep black into their skin.

They wore heavy armor that covered almost their entire bodies, and though they glided easily under the plated protection and mounted weapons and swords and spears, K'Shai was somehow sure that she would not be able to pick up one of their arm gauntlets without using both arms full force and strain her back in the process.

They were absolutely huge. Muscular, powerful bodies, small breasts, fit thighs, and yet despite it all, they still had a subtle difference in physique and gait that gave away their femininity.

While others in the room dropped their eyes respectfully when the females turned their way, K'Shai was too captivated by the look of them to stop staring. They turned towards her, growling in a tone even deeper than R'chnt's voice, as they rumbled to one another.

All three of them nodded in her direction, obviously talking about K'Shai. The nod was more of a _that's her_ type of gesture than a respectful head bow, and it was glaring enough to make K'Shai finally lower her eyes.

The three females moved away without interest and K'Shai continued to keep her eyes down, surveying her belly and wondering if the child she was gestating would grow up into anything nearly as impressive as they were.

Suddenly, she felt tremendously inferior and the notion ran into her mind before she could actively stop it. She was not Yautja. She could never be what those females were, and because of that, her child would literally be born handicapped, just as the females in the mei'sa all tried to impress upon her.

"You are adapting well, K'Shai. All are impressed." R'chnt said with a factual tone as he stroked her head and allowed his fingers to trail through her soft, flowing hair.

She smiled and tipped her head into his hand after she quietly expressed her concerns, whispering to him in her own alien language with her face pressed so closely against his head that her lips tickled his tresses as she spoke.

"I don't think they are as impressed as you think they are. I haven't exactly done anything impressive. Unless you count screwing everything up in a colossally impressive way. I think maybe I'd rather return to Earth with you."

He chortled, but she was not joking. He glanced to her and realized it as she cast her eyes once again to the females who had seated themselves on the far side of the cantina.

"You cannot. We have had this discussion before. K'Shai, you are adapting far better than anyone could have imagined. You are impressing all. Many never thought you would."

"They still don't think…" she had started to say, but her attention was caught off guard by Neh'rti, who she hadn't even seen approaching her.

"It is time," she said with her familiar displeased chuff.

K'Shai looked up to her, shifting her tipped chin away from R'chnt's palm as he bowed respectfully to the mighty leader looming over both of them.

"Time for what?" K'Shai questioned immediately, with an annoyed tone that clearly Neh'rti, who was now fully adept at reading the minute displays of her personality, picked up on.

"To display just how _Yautja_ you are. It is time for you to undergo the jut-cha'hal."

Neh'rti announced the last words loudly, catching the attention of the Yautja, hunters and workers alike in the room and directed K'Shai out of the cantina, R'chnt walking behind both of them.

K'Shai was guided through a length of corridors and eventually into a large round room with three chairs set up on display on an elevated platform.

Two of the chairs were already occupied, with two males who had returned from their hunts for supplies and a little bragging of their accomplishments, which earned them the right to undergo the painful process of having additional beads applied to their tresses. Forty or so spectators chittered away amongst themselves as they watched the procedure.

Females were applying the beads into the hunters' tresses, and roughly so. K'Shai noticed several of their tresses bleeding and as she was directed up to the stage and walked past them, her nose filled with an unquestionable scent of burning flesh.

The hunters growled and trilled, in an acceptable fashion, not expressing pain or discomfort. Both of them shifted their gazes slightly as she passed behind them, and their annoyed growls grew, as if they were displeased to have her join in on their special ritual.

K'Shai took a seat on the last chair at the far end of the platform and eyed R'chnt, who remained lingering in the back of the room, smoothly confident about how this particular rite would proceed.

He allowed other curious spectators to inch in front of him, so they could eye her readily, waiting to taunt her and bellow laughs as she flinched in pain. They crowded into the foot of the stage with anticipation as two female attendees moved in next to K'Shai with trays full of beads and instruments and gels on tall stands and immediately began groping K'Shai's feathery hair.

She eyed the trays and surveyed across the platform to the two hunters at her right, watching the fusing of the beads into their locks.

Little ribbons of smoke billowed up from the hunters' tresses as the beads were applied, but first their positions were etched into place with a small tool that pierced the fleshy skin of the Yautja's living hair.

It certainly _looked_ painful, and K'Shai, although she had pierced ears herself, commended the hunters for sitting through it so quietly. She did not recall sitting so still and soundly during her own painful piercings, although she was only six or seven when they were done.

The females began to get to work on K'Shai's hair, reviewing how they planned to tackle applying the beads into her alien hair before starting the process while Neh'rti loomed, pacing across the stage eyeing up all three of them to the grunts and groans of the crowd below, who like fans at a Nascar race, were just waiting for a wreck to happen.

K'Shai could not help but to notice how all eyes seemed to be directed towards her, while R'chnt lingered in the back of the room, an amused look on his face as he willfully allowed anyone to move in front of him to eye her up.

Although her hair was sometimes yanked and pulled a little uncomfortably, K'Shai mostly enjoyed the sensations and the attention. It was fairly typical for Yautja to have 'aseigan massage and work oils into their tresses, but K'Shai had never had any of them tend to her own hair, there was simply no need, and she did not particularly want to be handled by an 'aseigan, despite a certain status such things represented.

As the females worked heated oils into her scalp and hair, massaging it thoroughly, filling her nostrils with a strong but pleasant minty scent, K'Shai lolled her head into relaxation, reclined back into the chair and sighed slowly.

One of the females yanked so hard, she ripped out more than just a few of K'Shai's hairs and looked on in horrified amazement as K'Shai offered up no more reaction than an annoyed glare before she resumed her relaxed expression.

K'Shai caught Neh'rti's glare, who was standing stark still, idly ticking her mandibles, surveying the situation and clearly calculating that there was more going on that she realized, especially given R'chnt's completely unconcerned appearance as he watched on from the back of the room.

The beaders tackled the process of bunching K'Shai's hair into tubular strands about the diameter of her thumb, just large enough to fit the smallest of beads.

Yautja tresses grew thick from the roots, but tapered to a narrow tip. Some tresses just behind the temporal-mandibular joints, right over the ears, were considerably smaller. Those narrow tresses were donned with ornate little beads that glittered and clattered together as their hair strands collided, but they were much smaller than the rings that adorned the thicker tresses. K'Shai's foreign hair could be matted up just enough to accommodate those small rings.

The oils warmed her skull soothingly and the scalp massage she got while the females worked lulled her into almost a sleepy state.

She was not even aware when they finally started adding in the beads, and had only opened her eyes upon hearing a pained growl and jeering from the crowd. She noticed that all the attention in the room had turned away from her and she shifted her gaze to the hunter on the far end.

He was a youngster; his tresses barely had any rings at all. The only ones already adorned on him were earned after his _chiva_.

He wallowed in misery as a thick plume of smoke rose up from one of the tresses in the back of his head, to the waiting crowd's delight. The females looked more than displeased as they stopped their work; they were more than halfway done and immediately began removing all of the beads they had just applied with clear annoyance.

They severed fused connections with tools that looked like soldering irons and the amount of smoke that billowed up from the clearly embarrassed hunter's head almost fully engulfed him.

The crowd jeered on for a while and K'Shai's attention focused back onto the inside of her eyelids as the females working on her yanked and stroked and massaged her hair into dreadlocks and applied the beads while she sat placidly, comfortably soothed and warmed, only having to occasionally remind herself not to wince or flinch when one of them dug a talon too hard against her scalp, pressed too firmly on her small skull, or yanked forcefully on her hair.

By the time she was done, hours later, she opened her eyes and realized most of the room had cleared out.

Only a dozen or so spectators still remained; the hunter in the middle seat, who had not even ticked a tusked mandible in protest of what was happening to him, had long since finished and departed proudly. The other hunter at the far end, who had to undergo the entire process again was just about finished up, looking rather sweaty as he gripped the arm ends on the chair tightly.

K'Shai apparently had lost notoriety for not breaking down and wailing in agony. She eyed R'chnt with a smile and he spread his upper tusks satisfactorily. As she stood to join him, Neh'rti stepped over.

"You are stronger than you seem, K'Shai." She said with almost a slight hint of approval; the first K'Shai had ever heard from her.

"Or, perhaps…" Neh'rti paused as she extended a forceful, clawed hand towards her freshly beaded hair and gripped tightly, quite intentionally rubbing the now matted locks together between her fingers, pressing hard.

K'Shai eyed Neh'rti widely. Neh'rti tucked her tusks back together for a moment, then clicked them together loudly as she considered K'Shai's display, glanced to the crowd, all watching her now with renewed interest, and released K'Shai's hair with a simple bow. She stepped to the side to allow K'Shai to freely walk past.

"Why do you think she didn't make a point of it to the crowd?" K'Shai pondered aloud some time later as they laid together in his chambers. R'chnt did not respond.

"She usually _always_ take an opportunity to insult me for being human." K'Shai added, while she looked over her long hair and the new adornments.

He turned to look at her, considering her tone and words.

"She sees strength in you, K'Shai. She has come to value you far quicker than even I did. She expects you to display that strength, and you did."

Although she did not agree with R'chnt's belief, K'Shai did consider his words long after he returned back to Earth.

As she continued exploring the Clan ship in her free time, she eventually turned through the maze of corridors, which were quickly becoming more and more familiar, into a hallway she had not been in before.

She looked around in wonder, taking in the many skulls and weapons that adorned the walls along the entire stretch of the hallway. They were more carefully displayed than any museum she had ever been in, each one shined to a polish and glowing a sort of yellowish hue in the ambient light of the corridors.

Each skull told its own story, of which K'Shai attempted to imagine the details. She tried to envision the worlds that the creatures lived upon and the methods the hunters used to kill them.

She wondered how many Yautja died while killing the larger creatures, whose skulls that adorned central positions in the hallways were so powerfully wide, ridged, and plated, they looked bigger and more ferocious that even the bug queens, if such a thing was possible. R'chnt had said there were things out there worse than the hard meat, and she imagined that these creatures were probably representatives of such forms of life.

She heard rumbling voices from a nearby room and followed the curving corridor until she entered into the massive archway and stood in wide eyed wonder as all eyes turned in her direction. The elongated room with arched ceilings and concave walls was a massive control center.

She had never been up to the level she was on and as she looked around, she realized she had found the bridge or command room of the Clan ship. Her heart fluttered as she considered that she most definitely should _not_ be there.

Still, she gazed around, absorbing the sights before her. There were four layered levels to the command room, each one elevated a little higher than the others as they moved towards the front of the ship.

On both long walls were lighted display panels. Each one, as K'Shai looked at them in turn, formed almost a complete view of the entire planet and displayed details from streets to skyscrapers to mountains and little illuminated icons representing the hunters and their prey.

Yautja stood before each one, supervising their duties as needed. Almost all of them were females.

A few elder males stood around Neh'rti and several other females at the head of the room, in front of a massive, illuminated table with a holographic display of a particular region before them. Beyond them was a viewing portal that extended from the floor to the tall ceiling and nearly as completely wide as the room, and outside of it, the bright glowing blue and white globe of Earth.

K'Shai ignored the Yautja staring at her. She walked forward as if in a trance, eyeing Earth looming beyond the ship.

She had forgotten how long it had been since she looked out any viewport and gazed upon her own world.

For weeks, her only view of the planet was through computerized displays not unlike the ones that filled the room, and she had just gotten so used to thinking of the planet that way, that to see it glowing so beautiful and bright before the ship was overpowering. Despite how far away they were, and how massive the _jag'd'atoll_ was, Earth looked absolutely huge.

K'Shai had traipsed, step by step, all the way to the front of the command room. She stopped beyond the stunned quiet group of mostly irritated Yautja that watched her and stared at her world with a thin smile on her pressed together lips. From that view, it was impossible to tell that anything was wrong at all on the planet.

Suddenly, with a word from Neh'rti that K'Shai did not hear, a great massive blue flicker of light rocketed off the ship and projected towards the planet and K'Shai gasped in surprise, watching the comet-like trail tailing behind the great fireball.

The shot looked exactly like the fire from the powerful weapons the Yautja wore on their shoulders or carried in their hands, the _sivk'va-tai,_ and it zoomed towards the planet with deadly precision.

K'Shai had been told that the ships were capable of firing weapons down to the planet's surface to level cities, but she had not seen it happen. The shot fired off so quickly, and with almost no sound at all, beyond a crackling hum that sounded like overhead powerlines that it stunned her to see it happen.

It was such an odd feeling to watch the comet trail of blue fire, knowing that it was about to destroy something on her world.

In one sense, her planet was under attack from an unstoppable force that mankind was wholly unable to defend against. In another sense, the planet had already been attacked by an unstoppable force that mankind was wholly unable to defend against.

She turned towards the Yautja around the giant topography table, all staring at her and suddenly K'Shai felt very much like a little child who had just done something very naughty in the middle of a party.

She wanted to slink back out of the room and pretend she wasn't there at all, but instead she found herself defiantly locked into place, warily eyeing most of the elder council.

"Perhaps you have something to add, K'Shai?" Neh'rti finally shattered the awkward silence with a sneer.

K'Shai's eyes drifted down to the holographic projection and she surveyed it. She had no idea what they had been talking about or what she was looking at or what they expected of her, but she approached the table all the same.

"Well?" Neh'rti snapped finally after K'Shai spent an unusual number of minutes silently surveying the detailed display before her.

"I don't…I…. what…?" K'Shai stammered incoherently, adding in a few "uhhs" that no doubt sounded to the Yautja like growls of displeasure, which Neh'rti immediately echoed.

"Perhaps your strengths are limited to sleeping, eating, and jut-cha'hal, then?" Neh'rti grumbled. "Or _mating._ "

Neh'rti turned to two other elders nearer to her and continued on.

"I don't know how these _humans_ have managed to endure as long as they have. But if they can all breed as readily as K'Shai, they will have the planet repopulated again in a year. With your weak hides and weak weapons, K'Shai, you may have managed on your own world, but your strengths here are not in sparring or tactical planning. Now leave. This is work for Yautja."

K'Shai, fuming, bristled with rage. She glared at Neh'rti and shifted uncomfortably, remaining as silent as the other elders, who shifted their gazes between the two of them like they were watching a ping pong match.

"I am sure I could learn, Leader. If you can teach me." K'Shai growled a biting tone that did not go unnoticed and Neh'rti flared her mandibles, clearly annoyed.

"I have been teaching you! You are incapable of learning." Neh'rti bit back. "I've been told you might prefer leather working. It would be for the best. Do not disgrace this Clan further by _pretending_ to be a hunter, little _human_."

K'Shai glared at Neh'rti and felt her face flush with embarrassment and rage.

"Leave now, K'Shai. Experienced hunters will continue cleansing your world."

"You should. You caused it in the first place," K'Shai mumbled under her breath as she kept he eyes locked over the display.

Her words were spoken in English, which she immediately discovered was not an unknown language to Neh'rti or anyone else who heard it. The others shifted back and Neh'rti growled in pure agitation, rounded the table and reached for K'Shai.

"How _dare you!_ " Neh'rti bellowed as K'Shai dodged her grasp and eyed off with her. "You will _leave now_. _"_ Neh'rti barked, but did not step towards K'Shai.

"No." K'Shai defied.

"Show me," she nodded towards the display. "I want to learn what is going on here."

Neh'rti flared in agitation, growling deeply, her mandibles spread threateningly. K'Shai eyed her angrily but did not budge.

She immediately regretted her words and actions and would have much rather ran out of the room and found an isolated corner to break down sobbing in, but she was too committed now to turn away and solidify Neh'rti's belief that she was a weak and helpless little alien.

Finally, Neh'rti turned towards the table and circled it again, returning to her former position on the opposite side of it, but glaring at K'Shai the entire time while the other Yautja gave her plenty of space to move around. K'Shai only just noticed that the Yautja working along the many computer panels on both walls around her had all stopped to gawk at the display; she was too busy trying to swallow her heart again.

As the days passed, Neh'rti grew even more terse and curt with K'Shai, but did ensure that she was given the chance to learn by the other elders who helped command the ground and coordinate the space vessels in orbital attacks.

K'Shai, in turn, became equally as stand offish with Neh'rti and noticeably more moody amongst the females, sure that none of them were even remotely capable of appreciating her abilities or respecting what she had been through.

"It was enough for R'chnt to recognize and respect. I've been through hell and I was able to survive. What else does Neh'rti expect of me?" She barked to S'ridi from the hot bath, refusing to get out and head for her daily check up with the female healer.

"K'Shai, being able to survive is expected of _any_ Yautja. That is a _basic_ necessity, not the culmniation of a Yautja's strength." S'ridi said with a growling tone.

"Neh'rti is the Clan Leader. Her strongest concern is the strength of the bloodlines that comprise the clan, _especially_ the hunters. You are an alien and carry a hybrid offspring. She expects you to display your strengths in all that you do and prove that your blood will strengthen the Clan."

"Well, she needs to give me a chance, then." K'Shai grumbled, pointedly soaking her hair again, displaying that she was not coming out of the water any time soon, despite S'ridi hovering over her on the floor.

"You have a chance every day. You resist. Neh'rti's tolerance will extend only so far."

"She's not going to do anything…" K'Shai mumbled unhappily, stroking her belly.

"Tell me, K'Shai," S'ridi said, wrapping her body in a light cloak, "are all humans as defiant as you?"

K'Shai shot her a deadly glare, seething with hormonal agitation, she snapped.

"I'm _supposed_ to be aggressive, right?"

S'ridi huffed sharply, flaring her tusks then rapping them together loudly as she turned to exit the bath chamber.

"You should do as Neh'rti has told you and see the healer."

Not long after S'ridi left, K'Shai, alone in the bath chamber, decided to seek out other sections of the ship instead. She emerged from the hot pool, feeling as bit wobbly as her muscles had relaxed so much from the heat she had a hard time standing.

While she did not necessarily find the heat of the water particularly relaxing, it did ease her muscles, and the infant growing in her would almost always settle into placidness during a soak.

She visited the cantina purely to see what was going on in there, if any hunters had returned, if there was any news from Earth. She found it mostly empty, so she grabbed some fruit and left, and wandered the ship for a while longer, stopping into the K'ojol for some time, then visiting with L'ruch who evaluated the offspring, once again assuring her the child was fine.

"Do those mean anything?" She asked him, pointing to the brand-like tattoos burned into his flesh.

"They are symbols of the Clan."

"Did they hurt?"

"Yes." L'ruch answered simply.

"They're beautiful." K'Shai said. "I've seen a lot of people with them, not all hunters either. They're all different looking. Do you have to pass some kind of ritual to earn them, too?"

"No, just thechiva."

"Is there someone on this ship who can do them?"

"Of course, K'Shai."

K'Shai gritted her teeth and kept her jaw clenched as she made her way through the corridors that L'ruch had told her.

She found the right room and saw two workers hovering over other hunters as she tiptoed in, suddenly shuddering as her skin crawled. The room smelled like burning flesh. _Did everything with the Yautja involve burning flesh and pain,_ she thought as the realization that she probably shouldn't have come filtered into her along with the stinging scent.

Using similar tools to what she had seen for the _jut-cha'hal_ , the flowing and crisscrossing lines and patterns that made up the tattoos were being seared into the Yautja's skin like brands.

One hunter was on his stomach so the worker over him could etch the intricate lacy pattern along his spine. The other hunter was sitting upright, getting his shoulder done, and anyone who was positioned to do so, turned their heads and stared as K'Shai tiptoed in and froze.

Another worker she hadn't even noticed approached her, leering down at her curiously and grunted a brief and unimpressed bellow to her.

"Something you need, K'Shai?"

She was a little surprised that the bulky, almost _fat_ , Yautja covered in brands and piercings knew her name, but then again, she considered as she gazed around the room that looked more like a voluntary torture chamber than any tattoo parlor she had ever seen, she imagined that mostly everyone knew exactly who she was.

In no time at all, the impatient and gruff Yautja was hovering over her bare shoulders with the soldering-iron looking tool and K'Shai hissed in agony as her skin was seared. She was grateful that this particular event did not warrant an audience and a ceremony, but that hardly stopped passerbys from peeking in through the door-less entry way and gazing at her as the job was completed.

K'Shai squeezed her eyes shut. Her face turned beet red and tears rolled down her cheeks, but she stayed mostly quiet, save for the occasional high pitched whimper.

The pain surged in spells depending on how deep certain areas were carved, and it was those unexpected jolts that were probably the only thing keeping her from passing out.

 _Well,_ she thought, _L'ruch did say it hurt._

When she was done and saw the sprawling work on her shoulder that extended around her bicep and over her shoulder blade towards her spine, she was pleased. The pain began to subside immediately after an application of a gel that made the whole work gleam brightly, and K'Shai marched back to the mei'sa feeling like she had accomplished another feat of Yautja-ness.


	13. Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"I heard she lost consciousness…"

"She wailed like a _tr'ynth_ being gutted from what I was told!"

The mei'sa was often nothing more than a gossip factory, though the proud females would readily say they did not know what gossip even was. By the following morning K'Shai felt an unpleasant notion that she was still in high school as the females chittered amongst themselves about her new appearance, happily carrying on without any real concern for the facts at all.

When she appeared in the control room after a breakfast meal of steak, eggs, and fruits, Neh'rti barely even bothered to look up, only so much as to note her appearance and put her eyes back to the holographic map without a word to her.

This time, the terrain was little more than desert and caves. K'Shai had no idea what part of the planet the Yautja were surveying until she looked at a wider view on another monitor, feeling yet again insufficiently familiar with her own planet in comparison to the Yautja.

As each day had passed, she learning more about directing the war effort from the control room and in the process, she was learning about her own world from the perspective of aliens. The Yautja were never _impressed_ by the splendor of Earth and she had a hard time understanding why, although she supposed that to them, Earth was just another world.

To her, it was home, and as she surveyed it, she could not help but to talk about the lands, the people, they places she wanted to visit, places she would likely never see.

As she described it to them, and talked about the different regions, she found that they did not care to hear details about particular regions' climates or scenery nor did they have any interest in hearing about history of note of a country or a people.

They did seem more than familiar with wars, though, and K'Shai would grit her teeth to the point it hurt her jaws every time the Yautja called her people barbaric and uncivilized.

While she was learning about the homeworld of Yaut, a planet she knew she was destined to see, perhaps not as far off as it once felt, the Yautja seemed to already know all that they needed to know about Earth.

In some ways that was true, she supposed.

While they simply did not care about the people that inhabited the planet, they certainly did know far more about the regions and what the hunters on the ground might encounter as far as weather and footing conditions and sometimes any one of them would talk about the history of a region from their own perspective when they were actually on Earth hundreds of years before K'Shai was even born.

She was learning how the Yautja sweeping patterns worked, and how the efforts of the ground infantry was supplemented by weapon fire from the clan ships. She learned, yet something else she had not realized or considered, that there was more than one massive _jag'd'atoll_ in orbit of Earth, in fact, there were ten.

There were also close to one thousand hunting vessels in orbit, lingering around the planet and hidden in the clouds. The smaller ships could offer up aerial support with their own weapons systems, but they required lower altitudes to do so.

"All these Clans working together," K'Shai said as she looked over an orbital view of the alien army above her world. "Is this something the Yautjan Clans always do? Do you hunt or breed with other clans?"

"No," an elder answered briskly.

He considered her for a moment, as if thinking about her curious question and explained further. "It does a stronger Clan no use to interact with a lesser clans."

"But, lesser Clans will sometimes try to rise in power." Another elder said with a tone in his voice the suggested absolute superiority, as if the very notion offended him.

"But now they all work together? I'm curious, which Clan did the _eto_ who did this to my world belong to? The _Kaunte Dar'een_."

"No. They were of a lesser clan," K'Shai was told.

"R'chnt said that the bloodlines of the ones who did this were all hunted down and killed. What about the rest of that clan."

"It was destroyed." Neh'rti finally chimed in.

"When it was learned of what happened on this world, the clan that was responsible stood before a joined council of arbitrators. The tainted bloodlines were hunted down by the joined clans, and the rest were left without a clan. The territory was divided by the two clans that bordered it, ours and the _Nuh-cha_."

"The council of the Clan handles such situations." Another elder added.

K'Shai had not even realized that the Yautja had any type of diplomats to handle inter-clan negotiations. Although she did not get many details on how such problems were resolved, she imagined there was a significant amount of clan-regulated blood shed involved.

Even now, as she listened to the communications between the vessels, there was a constant verbal battle between them all with each leader of each Clan trying to prove they were the best, the strongest, the most sensible to listen to. K'Shai did quickly notice that when Neh'rti spoke, all seemed to immediately listen and defer to her commands.

The Dar'een clan and its atoll was indeed the largest and most powerful. None of the elder council hesitated to remind K'Shai that the Clan to which R'chnt and herself, and her growing offspring by birthright, belonged, was the most powerful of all them and that facet of knowledge was frequently reiterated to the lesser vessels during growling communications, as if they needed it.

While it was something of a bragging right for the people of the _Kaunte Dar'een_ Clan, the fact was undeniable. With over three million Blooded members of the Clan, and the largest territory on the home world, and the biggest of all the _jag'd'atolls_ , the prideful claims were not unjustified.

"What are all these?" She asked, seeing yellowish blobs in large groups all over the maps that she knew most definitely were not hunters.

"Those are your people," S'ridi informed her as Neh'rti and several others looked on.

K'Shai eyed the Yautja all widely. "They're alive?"

"Of course they're alive!" Neh'rti snapped.

"I didn't realize there were so many… I thought everyone was dead."

"It seems the Yautja aren't the only ones who underestimate the ability of your people to survive." Neh'rti said flatly. "They remain grouped together, walling themselves off, and this tactic has worked for them, _especially_ as the Yautja have been driving back the numbers of the hard meat. The hives are smaller and more easily controllable because of it."

"You call this small and controllable?" K'Shai bellowed in shock. "Our planet has been _annihilated_. Everything we knew is just… just… _gone._ So many people have died. There's nothing small or controlled about this!"

Neh'rti tightened her frame while the other elders suddenly grew decidely rigid.

"We are eradicating the hard meat, K'Shai. The Yautja will prevail." Neh'rti growled, clearly displeased by K'Shai's reaction.

Uncomfortable with the confrontation, K'Shai dipped her eyes to survey the map, directing the controls so she could scan the terrain over a wider section, then wider, then wider, until she had slowly scrolled through nearly the entire planet's surface and below, country by country, using the moment to avoid any conversation and submitting to Neh'rti's power at the same time.

There were clusters of humans _everywhere_ ; far more than she realized. The detailed scans showed her real-time views of the destruction that was once New York City, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Charlotte, so many other once populated hubs of human life, just _gone_. She surveyed them for a while longer and then muttered under breath in exasperastion at the destruction.

"There were too many numbers in those areas for hunting packs to destroy by hand. There were many locations that had to be levelled completely." S'ridi informed K'Shai.

"Your species is so vastly populated, it worked to their advantage, K'Shai." One of the others said and she eyed him curiously.

He continued, showing her patterns in the maps before her that she had not perceived.

"These… what did you call them? _Cities?_ So heavily populated with humans, created massive hives, but it also helped to centralize most of the hard meat to specific locations. The animals will venture from their hives to collect hosts, but they will not go far; they always will return to their queen, not another queen's hive.

Not only the humans, but the animals of your world as well, were instinctively smart enough to migrate way from the heaviest affected hubs. This is where the hunting packs are now concentrating."

"We are going to destroy this hive," another of the council elders indicated to an area on the map and then pointed towards the icons in blue that were Yautja hunters, all positioned nearby. "These hunting packs are ready to move in afterwards."

K'Shai silently surveyed the scans, looking at the hive movements, the Yautja positions and the orange blobs that represented humans. They were dangerously close to the impact radius, K'Shai noticed immediately.

"They're not far enough away. They could be killed."

"Perhaps some of them." One of the females snapped.

K'Shai glared from her to the rest of the Yautja around her.

"But…"

Neh'rti growled, cutting her off before she had a chance to say anything further.

"K'Shai, we are working on eradicating the hard meat from your world. This is the way it is to be done."

"But…" K'Shai started again and Neh'rti amplified her growl while the others moved away from the war table all together.

"You are not capable of understanding, you should leave. _Now._ "

K'Shai felt her heart jump, but she did not budge. She froze in a combination of fear and shock, while anger welled in her.

"No! I'm not just going to be sent out like some _child_!" She protested in a high pitched shrill. "You can't just blow up humans that are trying to survive!"

Neh'rti stepped over to her, flaring her tusks with quickly growing rage.

"If the hunters move in, they will be overrun and killed. They will destroy themselves and anyone else too near. We destroy the hive, and the hunters finish and move on. Some of your kind may be killed, but most will survive. Do you care as much about the Yautja you wish to live with?"

K'Shai stammered to a halt, and lowered her voice, dropping her eyes.

"That's not fair."

Neh'rti clenched her mandibles together tightly and withdrew slightly, almost as if she was a little surprised by K'Shai's reaction.

"Tell me K'Shai; is it in the nature of humans to avoid death so much, they value hiding in fear more?"

Neh'rti hissed as she turned back towards the table, spreading her tusks into an aggressive grin.

"Hunters do not fear their death. If they die destroying hives on _your_ world, they are honored. Their bloodlines are valued; they have brought strength to their Clan."

She pressed a button on the computer panel and the display grid changed to a clearer view of the human survivors so near to the hive that the hard meat were almost overlapping; the humans were about to endure an attack.

"Fleeing and hiding are not strengths. They will _all_ be killed if the hive is not destroyed. These humans are about to be overrun. So tell me K'Shai, do I take no action and watch some of our Clan's strong hunters perish along with _all_ of the _pyode amedha_ , or fire and allow the hunters the chance to do their work, and some of this human group can survive?"

K'Shai deflated, analyzing what was happening on the display before her in silence. The Yautja, she knew, despite what she had initially thought about them, were not on Earth to save the human race. They did not care about anything, she surmised, beyond their own vision of honor, and their Clan's strength.

The fact that humans had died and would continue to die did not matter at all to Neh'rti or any of the others in the room all staring at her as she glanced around at them all. It was difficult to understand how they could be so unconcerned with life or death, only honor, so devoid of emotion or empathy, and yet somehow, R'chnt connected with her in such a way that made him seem unique.

She thought of him quickly again and then let her mind flicker back to the events before her in the room. If he had been on the approach to the hive, she realized she would have fired without hesitation, to give him the best fighting chance of survival. She knew his armor, like everyone else's, was equipped with a self-detonation device.

She knew he would activate it if he were trapped with no way out. She knew he would do it without a moment's hesitation, without consideration of who would die in its wake. She sighed after a long, awkward silence that she barely noticed while she pondered the Yautja way and then realized Neh'rti had locked her menacing gaze upon her and appeared to be waiting for a response.

"Uhh…" K'Shai stammered incoherently.

"I understand." She said finally, swallowing over her own words and keeping her eyes locked on the three-dimensional display grid.

"Fire the shot, K'Shai," Neh'rti commanded and after a brief hesitation, K'Shai stepped over to the console.

Neh'rti watched her aim and fire the weapon and loomed over her with a sort of gloating pleasure as K'Shai fired the shot that destroyed the hive and whatever humans were unlucky enough to be in the blast radius. She pressed her lips together and watched the projection on the table change before her eyes.

The green icons that represented the hard meat had all but disappeared. The orange icons of human survivors had been reduced by at least thirty percent, and the remaining icons were moving away from the blast.

Meanwhile, the blue icons of the three hunting parties, forty-two Yautja in total, were all moving in from their flanking positions. Over the next few hours, she watched them systematically scan the terrain and destroy any straggler hard meat while the human party edged their way out of the current view. She felt sick the whole time, though with Neh'rti looming nearby, she dared not leave her position at the table.

Day after day she monitored the movement of the army and came to understand many truths about the condition of her world she had not realized. The hives of the hard meat were sprawling and vast, but the Yautja forces on the ground, in conjunction with aerial support, had been working diligently to clear the world of them for almost a year.

Millions of Yautja had heard the call and responded in force, banding together and working as teams, all the Clans uniting for the effort which affected the sense of honor and pride of the entire race, though there was considerable agitation between the Clans, and the elder councils of the ten most powerful clans were constantly engaged in negotiations, some of which were resolved in the middle of a kehrite instead of around a conference table. K'Shai had begun to gain an understanding of the number of losses the Yautja had suffered as well.

On the planet, she had come to learn that there were _millions_ of human survivors all over the face of the planet, and there were entire regions almost completely unaffected by the hard meat. Each group of survivors, from a few dozen to tens of thousands, all cut off from the others; all likely assuming they were the last ones on Earth.

She imagined every group she monitored propbably went throug much of the same horrors and doubts and fears she had experienced. She wondered if, for many of them, their biggest struggle was not avoiding the hard meat, but battling starvation and other humans; both plights K'Shai knew all too well.

Slowly as time had passed, human survivors had begun to send out radio signals to try to build communication and the Yautja vessels picked them up readily. K'Shai listened to them sometimes. Occasionally, the messages she overheard were just like the one W'rsa had picked up – broadcasting a safe haven for anyone who heard the call. The Yautja were pushing in on their prey, restricting the animals to defensive hordes, which in turn created safer clearings, wider buffers, and more opportunity for survivors to reconnect, and they were taking advantage of their alien-fortified safety nets.

K'Shai listened to transmissions that identified coordinates of new emerging cities, and even occasionally listed names of their occupants; each one hoping to reconnect with lost loved ones. Sometimes the transmissions provided tactical information that was useful for the Yautja in coordinating efforts, and in this way, with a solid understanding of what was being said and what it meant, K'Shai was able to find her place at the war table.

K'Shai's efforts seemed to please Neh'rti, if such a thing was possible, and for the time being, her focus shifted to consulting in the war effort as the child in her womb grew.

"K'Shai," Neh'rti barked in her deep rumble and drew her attention towards a large hive near the southern tip of Africa. "Bring the ship into firing range of this hive and destroy it."

Looking a bit like a deer in the headlights, K'Shai moved to the control panel near the main portal and tapped a series of controls to guide the entire Clans ship to where it needed to be in order to best aim the weapon. She had never even learned to drive a car, but flying a space ship was surprisingly simple.

Coordinating attacks from the Clan ships involved a delicate dance of communicating with leaders of other Clans as well as ensuring that the smaller vessels were out of the way so they did not get hit. When she guided the ship around to the best trajectory for the weapon to fire, she glanced around.

"What is the problem?" Neh'rti snapped. "Fire!"

"There are two ships in the way. They need to move."

Neh'rti flared her mandibles and growled in annoyance.

"Well, make them!"

K'Shai gritted her teeth and turned to the communication panel as the rest of the elders and Yaujta in the room looked on. She had been listening to the elders communicate with the other vessels' leaders, but as she pressed the button to signal both ships, she was quite certain she was not ready to command them herself.

Both Leaders of the other ships opened their commuication lines and K'Shai made her simple request to move out of the way so she could fire.

One of the Leaders laughed heartily and broke communication immediately, cursing something as he did so that K'Shai was certain included the words _animal_ and _insult._ The other Leader chortled through it all and then demanded to know why he should listen to an alien, and where the actual Yautja in charge were.

K'Shai looked around the room for a moment, not sure if she should be completely embarrassed, angry, or just flabbergasted. Neh'rti and the entire rest of the room stood stock still and stared at her.

No one spoke or moved or even ticked a mandible in either amusement or anger, which made K'Shai feel even more nervous for some reason she wasn't quite sure of. They were all just simply watching, gauging; seeing how she would handle the situation. She realized with a gulp in her throat and a clenched jaw, that she was being tested, again and again, every day, now by members of other clans.

She wondered if it would _ever_ end. She was sure she did not have whatever "it" took, whatever it was that the Yautja were looking for in her to prove she could be like them. She was sick of being pushed and challenged, and admonished.

Yet, she almost wanted Neh'rti to lash out at her with some other insult about how incapable of a creature she was, and maybe for extra effect, physically grab her away from the console to show her how it's done. That, at least, would have been a reprieve from standing there red faced and dumbstruck on what to do next. Her mind lit up and immediately she could not stop an influx of thoughts force their way into her mind about how stupid she was for thinking the other Yautja would ever actually listen to her.

She was certain that Neh'rti had put her up to this quite on purpose as a reminder that no matter what, she was not Yautja and could never be what they were. No doubt, K'Shai imagined, that Neh'rti was perterbed by the fact that she had been getting familiar with the ship, the war, and the elder council and had decided it was time to put the little human in her place by embarassing her fully.

The silence lingered on perhaps a few seconds too long and the growling voice on the other end of the communicator, no longer chortling with amusement, instead barked with demand for Neh'rti once again.

"No. I am K'Shai and I am telling you to move. I'll fire in five seconds, get out of the way or be destroyed." She snapped with all the irritation a pregnant, offended and embarrassed, twenty-year old human could muster and moved off to the firing control once again.

She counted silently to five and pressed the control. She glanced back to the main display and noticed the two vessels streaking out of the way with all the rush of a car burning rubber as it peeled out. K'Shai smiled thinly as she imagined smoke rising up from behind their engines while the Leaders aboard cursed under their breath.

Her efforts in the control room that day seemed to help ease the mockery from the females for a while, although Neh'rti herself had become noticeably more standoffish after that. As her belly grew, so did K'Shai's understanding of what was happening on the planet's surface as well as inter-clan relations.

Her body was changing, as was her comprehension of the nature of those changes, and as the circular systems of her own body sprawled out and connected with each other to support its new life, K'Shai had come to understand that the human race was beginning to experience something of the same thing.

The old Earth was lost, but very slowly as radio transmissions developed from one way to two way, as vehicles were utilized again to connect groups of survivors who were finding each other and banding together, rebuilding a new life in cleared out regions all over the globe, a new Earth, a new humanity, was growing before her eyes.

As the movements of the human populous, the surging waves of Yautja hunting packs, and the dwindling green blobs of the hard meat shifted hour by hour, day by day, week by week, she began to see growth and life returning to Earth, just as she watched the growth of life inside her develop.

While she felt intimately connected to one, she realized she was becoming disconnected of the other. The displays of Earth kept her occupied day to day and, she didn't even realize when, but at some point, she stopped thinking of the terrain, the people, and the cities in terms of places she had once wanted to visit and places she had seen. She stopped wondering about the fate of the people on the surface. They were simply little colored icons on a holographic projection, nothing more.

The only other projection she concerned herself with was that of her child as she watched it growing inside her.

The scans showed the baby's tiny little legs right down the little claws on her toes, nub-sized claws on her fingertips, and tusk-less fleshy mandible mouthparts. The infant's little head ridges speckled the scan in a tiny curving row, barely the size of K'Shai's fist.

The baby began to kick and fidget, rapping on her abdomen every few hours, restless and strong.

K'Shai ended communication with R'chnt one morning, eagerly awaiting his return. She wanted to touch him, feel his heated body, and tell him of her newest developments.

She kept her most recent adventures out of the brief conversation; he certainly didn't have time for it and she wanted to show herself off to him as a surprise anyway.

"She is relentless!" K'Shai informed him with a proud smile once he returned. She had greeted him with a firm hug, and was unable to make the statement really sound like a complaint as she urged his hand onto her abdomen once again.

"Tough as her mother," he said with certainty. "And from all I have been told, K'Shai, you have been busy proving that."

He stroked her face, then guided his hand down her shoulder and traced over the artwork branded into her. He purred lightly, expressing his pleasure over all he saw and touched in the silent stillness of his chambers shortly after he arrived.

"Do you like it?" She whispered softly with a smile.

R'chnt nodded silently.

"I think I want to do my whole body. I've seen others with them all over their legs and arms. It'll match my hair! Makes me feel so Yautja-ish." She giggled.

"Indeed, K'Shai." He said quietly as he ran his fingers along her body and over her breasts.

She huffed softly, his silent touch tingling her, arousing her as the baby inside her womb settled while her body began to churn. The Yautja blood in her surged, heated her veins, added to her scent and as she lightly trapped her lower lip under her upper teeth and inhaled deeply, she caught the scent of R'chnt's building musk.

They stepped over towards the bed, disrobing as they went and K'Shai picked a position that was comfortable for her and pleased them both. R'chnt trilled as he gripped her hips and grew his erection, rubbing his body against hers as she knelt before him on the edge of the raised sleeping platform.

He growled loudly as he slid himself easily into her opening, making her moan and quiver under his grip as he did. He felt her warm wetness lubricate him as he penetrated and withdrew, and thrusted again.

He maintained a deep, steady rumbling growl that vibrated his own body more than it was already surging as K'Shai's scent and vocalizations overtook him. He pushed himself into her rhythmically, secreting his own juices with each thrust, listening to her pant and bellow as she raised her hips and stretched her back and shifted her shoulders down into the padding below her.

She grappled the sheets and pressed her cheek into the matting, gaping her jaw and moaning her high-pitched wails that announced her pleasure, her ecstasy, her desire for him to work himself harder and faster.

Even with the growing child in her, K'Shai's stamina and endurance only grew.

She welcomed R'chnt back to the Clan ship every time he returned with a warm hug and wide smile, and laid herself before him to allow him an opportunity to pleasure himself in her, working off pent up desires.

He had become acutely more aware of the length of his absence from her, and touching her again, feeling her warm and soft and ready body, watching her change into something more Yautja looking and smelling every time he returned, was welcoming and enchanting. He inhaled her scent and rolled his eyes back into his head while his body throbbed and heated up before its release.

"I don't want you to go." She whispered to him from a tight embrace once they had returned to the docking bay.

"I must go, K'Shai. This will be done soon."

She pressed her lips together and gripped his mighty biceps firmly, stroking them as she slid her hands along them repeatedly.

"I don't want to be away from you."

"K'Shai…" R'chnt rumbled, placing his palm on her chin, ignoring the onlooking gazes of 'aseigan curiously watching the display.

"Soon."

The shuttle was stocked and despite her objections, he departed after several more attempts on her part to get him to remain.

K'Shai kept in contact with R'chnt, following his progress and monitoring his vital signs with more regularity than she discussed with him, but she did inform him of every new development with his child. Every new flinch and kick and punch created a new wealth of sensations for her to adjust to, and while the experienced mothers in the mei'sa were familiar with the feelings, they were indifferent to them, associating them with a normal part of motherhood, hardly anything to get excited about.

The way the Yautja mourned, or did not mourn, their dead was not much unlike the way they lived and the family bonds they experienced. Like a fallen hunter that was respected for his life and honored for his bravery and recognized for adding another valuable genetic code to the Clan's DNA, the Yautja honored them without love.

From what K'Shai had seen, anything close to affection that a Yautja displayed was little more than a quirk in an individual's personality, and was more likely to be seen in elders that had hunted and survived and experienced more than the younger hunters.

Mothers, though protective, maintained an emotional detachment from their own offspring. They selected their mates based on feats of accomplishments with the desire of procreating strong bloodlines that would benefit the Clan. They did not form families, but they cared about bloodlines. She watched the Yautja mothers handle and care for their offspring, learning from them so she could learn the Yautja ways.

The mothers were attentive and nurturing. They diligently supervised their older offspring and rarely ever even put down their infants, always keeping them warm, fed, and content. They groomed and bathed their children, taught and guided them.

They carefully monitored them as older ones played and fought amongst themselves, but they did not intervene as a bigger, stronger child wrestled down a smaller one. They did not come running to the aid of their own child if they got scraped or injured.

They prevented serious injuries, but did not intervene into minor scuffles, allowing the children to work out dominance amongst themselves. The older children would fight viciously and required heavy supervision. Watching the children of different ages interact helped her learn about their behaviour directly, and took up the majority of her, and almost all of the other females' time.

K'Shai was surprised to see that despite the physical size and calendar-year ages of the older Yautja, they were far from as mentally developed as a typical human of comparable growth. The juveniles on the Clan ship were physically as a human teenager, but they were only considered barely older than toddlers by the Yautja calendar.

It was confusing and a little disorientating to adjust to, as K'shai pondered how the hybrid in her womb would mature.

The juveniles aboard the clan ship required less supervision than the larger, more mature youngsters on the homeworld, who were hormonal, and beginning their own journey towards achieving their chiva, and yet the amount of supervision they needed quite literally took the entire mei'sa as a group to manage.

It was not at all unusual to see a nursing mother watching over the interactions of older juveniles that were not even of her blood.

While at K'Shai's age, she would have been in college and was mentally capable of learning the growingly more complex ship functions, the Yautja children she watched tearing into one another, leaving deep scratches and bite marks, were entirely different than she would have expected.

They were the same size as her, some of them slightly larger, but their mental acuity was far less.

She considered the children she now supervised with three other females. They were just a bit taller than her in size and far larger in muscle mass. Seven male youngsters, all at first sight large enough to make a human think of them as college-age young men, filed into the kehrite and took to the positions they desired to prepare for an acuity-building spar game.

The young boys, though they had been alive for over forty Earth years, were about as mentally developed as the average third-grade human. She had been surprised to realize that many of the young children barely had much of a vocabulary, and did not learn to even read until they were much older, if at all.

As she herself was learning to read and write and speak, she began to understand that she was much farther along than even some of the youngest Blooded members of the Clan, who could barely read themselves.

Yautja were slow to mature mentally and quick to develop physically. Education was encouraged in a format of fighting first, mental development later, if the individual so chose.

Emphasis on strength, power, controlling their natural hormonal-driven impulses, honing fighting skills, and developing the ability to dominate, was first and foremost in young Yautja education for either gender.

Many of the hieroglyphic symbols that K'Shai had once found so cryptic and confusing, were really just literally pictograms of the most basic sort, to make operating machinery and even awu'asa simple for Yautja who had learned to kill but not to read.

The texts that R'chnt taught her from were written in the far more complex Yautja alphabet, which he had learned over decades after his Blooding hunt.

She had come to understand that he had gained a worldly knowledge from his years of experience, not through formal education like a human child would receive. He had simply survived long enough to come to know more than the average Yautja. He was highly intelligent, like most Yautja with a mature mind was, he just simply did not bother to concern himself with complex matters.

R'chnt had once told her that he considered himself a " _doer_ " while other Yautja who pursued the life of a non-hunter, were " _thinkers_ ". He was a hunter.

Matters of science, medicine, music, politics did not matter to him, and he spent nearly none of his time endeavoring into any of them. He was concerned only with the hunt, the spirituality behind the hunt, and honoring the Yautja God Cetanu the way any good hunter was expected. He would say that the "thinkers" could worry about the rest.

The idea of that type of separation made little sense to her at the time, but as she witnessed the development of the " _doers"_ before her eyes and realized that if they continued on to be hunters for the Clan, they would likely not bother filling their time with learning other skills, the differences made more sense. Surviving chiva was all a young Yautja really understood or cared about, and it was all the mothers of the mei'sa taught and encouraged.

Each female was highly concerned with developing the strongest of the children, whether or not they were of their own blood, while weeding out the lesser students who would either have to show above average endurance to make it to and through chiva, or become 'aseigan.

Lessons for the children on the ship took on the format of sparring games and group story-times, in which the children, and K'Shai right along with them, learned of the history of their people.

She thought about how young Yautja matured, the time it took, and how her own child would be expected to grow and learn. It was alarming to her and made her feel queasy every time she thought about it.

Reading, writing, math, art, sciences; none of it would be a priority in the development of her child until she survived chiva. Even then, she considered, the offspring could decide to breed immediately and remain in the mei'sa to tend to other offspring, where her worldly knowledge would grow slowly through experience, instead of developing through study as a human would.

She unconsciously grappled her belly and thought about her developing daughter, filling with worry that she would never see the child mature, and perhaps not even live long enough to have a significant impact on how the child grew up and developed at all. She looked down to her bloated abdomen for only a moment when a fight broke out between two of the boys in the kehrite.

One had decided he liked the position of the other better, but the other refused to budge. Immediately, the two began brawling with as much brutality as any adult, though with far less coordination or grace and a complete absence of any rules.

The young Yautja bellowed and grunted as they beat on each other. They barked out occasional insults to one another about the length of their tusks and tresses in short, rough syllables, displaying their limited language skills.

"We have to stop them!" She finally said after a short while when none of the females supervising did anything to intervene as the two children punch and clawed at each other, drawing blood.

"K'Shai! Remain where you are." One female growled.

The others looked at her with surprises gazes.

"They are establishing the strongest, K'Shai." One said factually.

"They're going to kill each other," K'Shai whispered in horrified alarm.

One of the other females scoffed at the idea. "Children are forbidden to kill. We are here to make sure they don't. The rest is up to them."

K'Shai eyed her with surprised rage and the larger of the two successfully managed to pummel the smaller one to the ground and continued to hit him relentlessly.

"But…."

"I don't know how _humans_ establish dominance, or what you think you are going to teach that child of yours, K'Shai, but they must find their own positions. This is the Yautja way!" One of the females scathed at her.

"If the son of Bryn'tor is not strong enough to defend himself against an attack from the son of Arg'uln-de, then he must accept his lower place." Another mei'sa mother snapped.

K'Shai quieted just in time to hear a terrible cracking sound echo through the kehrite. The other children all gazed on, but each one held their positions, never daring to move out of place for risk of being attacked by another wishing to remove them from it. The smaller male on the ground had put up a valid effort against his larger attacker, but had suffered a broken lower mandible in the process.

The females stepped in to end the display once the smaller male, bloodied, scratched, and battered, was nearly unconscious. The bigger child grunted pridefully and received a warning growl from one of the females.

He returned to the center of the kehrite, to the position he had fought for. K'Shai watched in horror as the smaller male shook himself off and stood up, returning himself to the lesser position, despite being clearly uncoordinated and dazed from the beating he received.

K'Shai continued on, watching the children, supervising them during spars and meals and the difficult times of getting them to sleep. She had decided that it must just be a universal truth that after a certain age, children just hated being told to go to sleep.

The youngest children, the fiery little toddlers who fumbled and clattered into one another were far easier to care for, she thought. They played hard and slept hard, and really only demanded food. Sometimes catching them up to be cleaned up was difficult, as was getting them to utilize the bathrooms, but overall, baby Yautja were nowhere near as challenging to manage as their older juvenile counterparts.

Between keeping busy within the mei'sa and around the war table, K'Shai had lost track of time. Her belly swelled and the world revolved outside the massive portal. The ships in orbit positioned themselves like a dance, ebbing and receding while shuttles continually scurried back and forth endlessly every minute of every day.

K'Shai had learned quickly and some of the others expressed their amazement at how much information someone with such a small skull could manage to absorb so quickly and understand it all. She was learning and doing things that typical youngbloods did not, and more capably so than many Yautja would ever learn. What had taken months for K'Shai to learn and understand and perform, would take the average Yautja decades.

As her child grew and grew so did her own position within the Clan. She had been granted private accommodations in the mei'sa, which was a privilege typically reserved for higher ranking females of advanced ages. Young blooded females normally shared community rooms until they grew in rank and status and earned more luxuries.

She tried not to think about the irony that the more she tried to learn the Yautja way and become like them, the more she was actually separating herself from them by the very nature of her differences.

She glided her hands over the sleek metal surface of the control panel in the command room, thinking instead about the ship, the weapons, the technology, and then R'chnt and the armor he wore. The machinery functioned, like the almost organic _awu'asa_ that seemed to operate with a mind of its own, seamlessly and fluidly with minimal control.

The next time R'chnt returned to the ship, he found K'Shai eagerly greeting him, now fully covered in Clan brands from the sides of her head all the way down to her flat, thin toe claws.

The brandings scrolled and danced in patterns that complemented her sleek and small frame. Their intricate details had taken endless hours to complete and he had been told that she endured the pain as well as any Yautja should, although she had the work completed in multiple sittings over many rotations.

Her body, so unlike a Yautja, yet so Yautja-ish in scent, prescence, and adornments, created an enticing appeal that he warily noticed was clearly increasing in all who saw her.

As he dealt with his business and then sat with K'Shai in a cantina while his shuttle was being refilled of supplies, he surveyed K'Shai, pleased by all he saw and heard from her and from others.

"K'Shai's place in the clan is developing more every day, R'chnt. You picked well. _Very_ well." K'tor-de said to him while he gazed a little too much at his mate returning to their table with a platter of food. R'chnt growled a sharp reminder, which K'tor-de heeded immediately.

She smiled at R'chnt as she slid in next to him. He picked a fruit from the platter and received her kiss on his cheek with a pricked upper tusk; smiling a little gloatingly as males looked on.

"K'tor-de has told me you have learned to pilot the vessel well." R'chnt informed her.

"I suppose. Really just back and forth around in a circle. I look forward to learning to fly the K'ojol," she said with a pressing tone in her voice.

"You will learn." R'chnt nodded.

"Good, because I really want to take it to _warp_! Maybe go through a wormhole. Have you ever been to a different dimension or something?" She laughed. "Oh, tell me _you have transporters_." She added with a laugh at their dumbfounded gazes.

"To what?" R'chnt and K'tor-de both echoed almost in synch.

"What? Warp speed? Wormholes?" K'Shai repeated slower.

She did not know how to say the words in Yautjan, if there even were words for it, so she did her best to describe what she meant to R'chnt in her own language so he could understand.

"K'Shai!" R'chnt bellowed half in a laugh half in a deep growl; a tone of pure confused amusement. "Your species is most unusual."

He had just about allowed himself to believe he had K'Shai and her species figured out, but how the very notion of the things she described had even come to be made no sense at all. It was absurd. Still, she had clear adjusted quite well to her new role amongst the Clan, and it seemed that even her own mind had eased in regards to her dealings with the females and the mei'sa.

As he talked with her more, she spoke less and less of problems amongst the females, and instead turned her worries to that of their growing offspring.

After some time, K'Shai departed their table to join some females at theirs upon invitation. He watched her stalk away and sit with them, as cool as casually as any Blooded female Yautja should be; such a striking difference than her reserved trepidation in the first few weeks aboard the atoll.

He was informed, through the _grapevine_ , or directly from Neh'rti or any of the other elders that were working closely with K'Shai, that she was stronger than they ever imagined she could be. She was defiant and despite her fragile frame they found her determinedly more aggressive than they had expected.

" _Strong heart_ indeed," one of his companions chortled over their mugs of brew.

"From what I hear, she told the Leader of the _Hun'katu_ Clan she would destroy his ship! He didn't know what to say, but I'm sure he probably ground his tusks to nubs having to take an order from the _ooman_!" Another bellowed.

"The _Hun'katu_ is a meaningless Clan. I'll teach K'Shai to order around the likes of you, Ytin-de." R'chnt said with a pleased chuff, drawing out sniggering laughter from the other males at the table, as he sipped his brew and watched K'Shai.

"R'chnt, if she can really be rebred over and over, and mates in such a way you seem so pleased with, you will find yourself fighting away endless challengers for her," Y'tin-de rebutted strongly.

"She grows more powerful and intriguing with each passing day. She grows more Yautja and her scent is overpowering. I may be tempted to put my own tusks into her flesh. You have to yet to mark her, perhaps you are uncertain you really want to keep her as your mate."

"Watch yourself, Y'tin-de," R'chnt growled warningly, bristling as he stood and towered over the still seated elder, who immediately shifted his eyes to the floor.

He wanted K'Shai to settle in with the Yautja well and demonstrate the strength he knew she had. He was pleased by all she had done. She took to it all quicker and more solidly than he had expected and had drawn an alarming amount of attention he never anticipated.

Hushed insults about his mental state or mocking jests about his _pyode amedha_ mate spoken well out of ear shot were one thing, but he had not expected the number of comments he had been made privy to about males' curiosity to take her for themselves.

His protectiveness flared up as K'Shai, now exiting from the company of the females stood and headed towards the doorway slowly. He growled a warning, which he allowed to reverberate deeply before he moved away from the table, telling the others he would readily accept any challenges.

He stiffened and bristled, half expecting Y'tin-de, or any of the five others he had been seated with to take up the offer, but none did. He imagined, though, that once she was ready for re-breeding, he very well may have his work cut out for him. Keeping K'Shai as his mate could well prove to be the biggest challenge of his life.

He strode up behind her quickly and powerfully, gliding silently towards her as she paused and turned and waited for him before they exited the cantina together and walked through the corridors back to the K'ojol.

"You're very quiet…" K'Shai said in a trailing whisper. "Everything alright?"

"Yes, K'Shai." He said simply, chuffing slightly and ticking his upper tusks together rapidly, drawing out a hollow sounding purr as he groped her face gently.

He would do what it would take to keep her safe and to himself and continue to breed with her over and over. She was his. He knew she would not openly choose to mate with another, but that would not prevent others from challenging him for her, taking her by force if she did not kill them for the effort. She still had much to learn, although for the time being, her pregnancy would work to both of their advantage.

The child within her was growing larger, though. The time was drawing near. Her belly was fully round. Soon enough, the Yautja would have no more business on Earth, and they would return to the homeworld.

Breeding season would come around, and R'chnt considered what would happen when females began to come into readiness, including K'Shai. He would mark her as his, as publically as necessary so there would be no question who had rights to her.

The war on her world was coming to a close.

So few and far between were the hives remaining now that the Yautja hunting packs, with direction and guidance from support teams that now included K'Shai, were converging together for final sweeps of the land above and below the surface, eliminating the last of the hard meat in all its forms from the planet. The effort was efficient and methodical, though bloody and challenging, and causing heavy losses.

R'chnt had made his way back to the K'ojol with K'Shai and joined her in the shower, feeling the hot water against his skin while K'Shai moaned in pleasure under her much cooler shower heads before she turned towards him. He caressed her, dragging his talons lightly from her chin down her shoulder, over her chest, and along her swollen belly. He placed his hands on her womb and K'Shai laughed lightly as the baby immediately kicked, almost as if in response to her father's hands.

"She's getting close."

"She is growing much faster than a pureblooded Yautja," R'chnt purred.

"Faster? I feel like I've been pregnant forever." K'Shai laughed. "I'm ready for her to come out!"

She stepped closer to R'chnt, smiling up at him as he loomed over her, tusks spread with interest, erection hardening. She still, despite the discomfort she felt at this stage of pregnancy, wanted him. Such a thing intrigued him.

She caught his scent and it triggered a response in her. Perhaps she was more sensitive to it now because she had so much powerful Yautja blood in her body, but his musk was utterly enticing.

Too uncomfortable to manage to accommodate her desires, she placed her hands on him, stroking from his abdomen down to his groin as she gripped his growing rod with one hand and the sacs below in the other.

She began to work his skin, slowly, then faster, pressing her body into his and kissing his powerful abdomen as she rubbed and stroked his erection faster, firmer, harder, making him growl his pleasure, stirring his natural desire to pump his hips into the sensation. He leaned back against the shower wall, tipped his head back and groaned and rumbled in delight until he released himself with a heated purr.

They rested in bed for a while longer until movement from the offspring caused K'Shai to stir with a soured moan. R'chnt was up and alert and as K'Shai pulled herself out of bed, awkwardly navigating around his chambers because of her inflated belly, trying to quell her upset and settle the child within, she surveyed him while he began redressing.

K'Shai walked with R'chnt back to the docking bay with slow strides. He kept pace with her, walking side by side through the corridors, careful never to put K'Shai behind him, not anymore. Not too long ago, she used to only walk behind him, tucked up behind him so close she would bump her body into his back as they moved. She had found herself, her place, her strength, and she walked alongside him proving it.

He allowed her to pass him first through narrower passages, willingly submitting to her, as others gazed on while they entered the shuttle bay. R'chnt moved in close to her, resting his hands on her abdomen as he leaned over and she reached up and kissed him once they reached the shuttle.

"I hope this will be over soon," she whispered to him.

"The war or your pregnancy?" R'chnt asked coolly.

K'Shai laughed loudly, caught a little off guard by the joke, or the actuality that R'chnt wasn't sure to which she was referring, she couldn't be sure.

"Both, since you mentioned it!" She smiled.

"K'Shai…" He purred with a rumbling chuckle, and stroked her face.

She watched with a fading smile as he turned into the shuttle and it departed from the docking bay. She turned back to the corridors and paced them slowly back to the mei'sa where she took a seat in one of the common rooms and snacked on some fruits.

For a long while, the room remained empty, but slowly other mothers filtered in and some of them included K'Shai in their chatter. She had talked with them so long, she lost track of time until her rumbling belly reminded her she was hungry again as well as fatigued.

As she turned into the main corridor, she glanced around and immediately stopped as she saw Neh'rti accompanying the three robust female hunters she had seen earlier. Each stopped in turn as they came out into the corridor and surveyed K'Shai, who felt her skin prickle at the imposing sight of the female hunters.

They said nothing to her, only glanced her direction for a moment and turned the opposite way to go about their own business. K'Shai watched the small group leave the area and then turned and headed off.

Her thoughts drifted that night and in the nights afterwards to the growing child in her womb. While she laid in restless silence in her sleeping chambers in the mei'sa, or soaked in the lulling heat of the common baths, she wondered again, she couldn't help it, if her child would be accepted and grow up strong like those female hunters she saw.

She worried, to the point of illness, over the thought that her offspring would be deemed unworthy of a place in the Clan and cast out as an 'aseigan before she was barely old enough to walk. She envisioned herself single-handedly ruining R'chnt's status, honor, and reputation.

She tried to force out mental images of all of them strung upside down from a totem missing their skin.

She continued attending to her given tasks and slowly, as the days ticked past, the displays of the world showed a very different view than what had been months earlier.

As the hives were eliminated one by one, every drone, every egg, every larvae and every queen sought out and destroyed, the Yautja hunting packs converged in larger formations for final sweeps. Then, little by little, the shuttles scurrying back and forth to the planet returned full every time, bringing back hunters _en masse_ to the Clan ship.


	14. Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The corridors of the massive _jag'd'atoll_ filled up quickly as the Yautja began their steady return from the alien world.

K'Shai recalled once wondering what the 'big deal' would be about her roaming the corridors of the atoll for the past many months as she began adjusting to life with the Yautja and they began adjusting to having her around, but now as the hallways became packed with hunters, she figured out the _big deal_ on her own.

The Yautja, in the small numbers she had become accustomed to, were far easier to deal with than the large groups suddenly crowding every corridor and every room. K'Shai found solace in the quiet of the K'ojol, but getting there had become a skin-prickling event.

As Yautja filed back onto the Clan ship endlessly throughout every hour of the day, returning in groups of five or ten or twenty shuttle by shuttle, walking corridors had become more challenging that K'Shai had ever imagined.

She had grown comfortable perceiving the massive vessel as one with large, wide, easily passable corridors and rooms that were almost vacant. Suddenly, everywhere she looked, Yautja were packed shoulder to shoulder, in various states of wearing full armor and carrying weapons and skulls or wearing nothing but loin cloths, if they were clothed at all.

Some of the returning warriors came arrived with wounds still bleeding, some missing limbs entirely. Some limped their way to medical care, by way of the cantina first, just to gloat loudly over how they got the injury in the first place.

Instead of being worn, defeated, and traumatized, the hunters piling back into the ship were ecstatic, jovial, and beyond casual about the injuries they returned with. The energy level on the ship supercharged as amped up hunters loudly retold tales of their adventures on the alien world in their deep rumbling and bellowing bass voices.

The cantinas that had once held maybe a dozen Yautja at the most, incuding 'asiegan, were now bustling to the brim with twelve or fifteen dozen.

They all acted like they had just returned from a fun vacation, retelling their experiences with as much enthusiasm and vigor as children who just returned from their first time at Disneyworld would exude.

K'Shai watched and listened in wide eyed wonder horrified by the notion that the hunters had _enjoyed_ their experiences on Earth and thought of the massive war as the most glorious challenge they had ever partaken in, certain to reap them great rewards in elevated rank, status, and breeding rights.

For many of the hunters, it was their first time on Earth or seeing humans, even if they weren't hunting them. For others, it was also their first time even hunting the hard meat.

Not every Yautja achieved their place in the Clan by hunting the hard meat for their _chiva_ trials, she had come to understand. Each Leader had their own preference for how to challenge young would-be hunters.

Each hunter had returned with their own version of how they mastered their undeveloped skills, outwitting their prey and their own hunting mates, and etched themselves up in rank amongst their groups and status in the Clan while on the alien world.

Many of the males proudly boasted about the number of mates they would claim as soon as breeding cycle occurred. Talk quickly turned towards breeding, and K'Shai became acutely aware that not only was a breeding season looming in the near future, but also that there was more than enough curiosity about her ability to be re-bred that she had become quite the topic of conversation.

K'Shai remained amongst gaggles of females as she caught more and more stares from males as the days passed. Though none approached her or even spoke to her directly, she could hear her name brought up in conversations all too frequently.

While she did think she would eventually get used to being gawked at, she felt more and more uncomfortable with each new set of burning alien eyes surveying her to the point that she either remained well enveloped in a group of females, or within the confines of the mei'sa.

At least, amongst the females, K'Shai felt safer and protected. Much of what they had spent months trying to make her understand began to make sense, making her feel more than a little foolish.

If they did not go directly to the cantina after arriving to the atoll, many of the hunters did not delay in heading straight to jut-cha'hal or visiting one of the tattoo dens to have their victories etched into their bodies while they were still so fueled up with adrenaline the pain would be minimal, no doubt.

The cantinas filled up with returning hunters to the point where it was almost impossible for her to squeeze into one and make her way to the food, despite her smaller size. The musk of the many Yautja, all wreaking with excitement, sweat, days or weeks of uncleanliness, and blood was overpowering.

She was not sure if it was the surge of hormones from alien genetics in her, or simply the overcrowded rooms, but she began to grow sensitive to the musk that all the males emanated.

She stopped in one open doorway to a cantina and refused to enter as many heads turned her way to gawk. She simply turned and went about her business as though going to the cantina was not important enough to her.

Having similar experiences at two more, she gave up and returned the mei'sa, commanding an 'aseigan to bring her food instead.

The vocal rumblings of all the returning Yautja grew so loud and boisteroius around the clock that it made the floor grates rattle. K'Shai could feel the vibrations as she approached the main door to the mei'sa, she could hear their bellowing growls and roars rising up through the hollow gridwork of wiring and pipes in the walls.

Many of the hunters turned the communal bath houses into something more along the lines of frat houses. They spent hours soaking off the sweat, blood, scents and crustiness of their exertions on the alien world and continued to regale their peers and comrades with stories over drink and food, acting loud and boisterous enough to draw attention of any female nearby.

K'Shai spent a short while in one bath house with five other females in a pool.

The males dared not enter the females' pool or even get too close, but they certainly presented themselves prominently, hoping to draw the females to them.

In attempts to do so, many of them disrobed completely, proudly displaying not only their scars and injuries from the hunt as silent monuments to their fighting experience, but also their muscles and dangling rods and large sacs as silent statements to how they would feel inside any female who had them.

Their purpose worked, too.

As K'Shai sat with her small group in the soaking pools, watching the males come and go and stride around displaying themselves as deliberately as possible as they boasted and even playfully sparred with their friends, the females certainly took notice of them.

Youngblood and elder alike all poised and displayed themselves and fought like eager children trying to put on the best show. Though the various ranks remained carefully away from each other.

The ranks between the males quickly became clear as higher ranked or older Yautja would growl and bellow and thud into the younger, lesser males, giving them harsh reminders of who stood the best chance against what female.

K'Shai couldn't help but blush a little in human modesty as she watched the parade before her. She watched how the females would eye up the males, taking in their pride as they offered it up, and commenting amongst themselves who stood out the most to each of them.

The energy aboard the Clan ship was strong, the Yautja musk was strong, and the females were pleasantly entertained.

K'Shai pulled herself free from the soaking pool when the hot water grew uncomfortable for her. She tiptoed carefully out of the pool, naturally body shy as her human upbringing demanded of her and she suddenly felt flush with embarrassment as she realized just how many eyes turned her way.

She quickly robed herself, though it was a rather pointless undertaking, and scurried out of the bath chamber. As she made her way back through the corridors, in nothing but a light, nearly sheer cloak, with one arm supporting her swollen belly, she tried to pass through corridors that had become more packed with Yautja than they were a few hours before.

She wanted to drop her eyes to her own toes and shove her way through the many hunters jam-packed in the corridors, but her Yautja training told her to stand tall, chin up, shoulders back, and keep her eyes focused on her destination.

Once she made the subtle change in her body posture, she immediately noticed that many of the hunters began to clear a path, allowing her through.

They still stopped and gawked and chattered and growled amongst themselves as she passed, making her feel a little like she was walking through some kind of gauntlet, but they did move.

At first, she braced for the onslaught of ridicule, and her heart sped up as she tried to figure out how she was going to respond to dozens and dozens of male hunters all chastising her for existing as she tried to push her way through them, but the sharp remarks and growled insults never came.

By the time she reached the far end of one corridor and turned into the adjacent passage, K'Shai had realized her heart rate had slowed and her pace did too. She kept her back braced tall, as if she could somehow add a few feet to her frame by doing so. Her eyes remained up, locked onto her destination somewhere before her.

She heard mutterings from the packed halls as more returning hunters got their first looks at the alien amongst them. Many of the hunters simply commented about her quickly and went on their own business.

A few backed away from her as if she was eyeing them up for a challenge they wanted to decline, and a few simply dropped their gazes as though the very idea of even looking at her was uncomfortable.

A very few of them nodded at her in a subtle gesture of acknowledgement, but much to her surprise, none that she heard chitter, click, growl, or mumble, issued any kinds of insults or threats. Rather, the corridors fell somewhat quiet as she walked through them, which prickled her skin even more.

Day by day, the ship packed with more and more Yautja. K'Shai grew more uncomfortable with each passing rotation as the child in her felt like she was performing acrobatics Yautja style nearly non stop.

"You're starting your sparring training a little too early, baby. You've got to stop." She whispered to her unborn offspring after a restless night of more tossing and sitting up and trying again than actual sleeping.

K'Shai took to remaining in the mei'sa or the command room and did not venture anywhere else, which seemed to please Neh'rti as they worked on continuing to direct remaining troops on the planet.

She focused on the concentrated forces on the planet, and backed them up by directing the ship and aiming the main cannon, spending much of her time watching the formations of glowing little icons on the holographic display move and change.

"K'Shai!" Neh'rti barked sharply as she entered the command room, noticing her slumped over a console. "You have been working longer than usual."

K'Shai groaned and stretched.

"You need to eat. Your offspring is restless."

"Oh, I know she is." K'Shai groped her belly and eyed Neh'rti, who remained motionless near the door surveying her.

"Come."

K'Shai frowed suspiciously as Neh'rti guided her out of the control room. Instead of taking her to the mei'sa for some food and rest, she diverted towards a lift that would take them to one of the bustling levels full of hunters and K'Shai went rigid, trying to come up with a good way to get Neh'rti to understand that wasn't where she wanted to be.

"Neh'rti, I think I am going to the mei'sa," she said with a groan. "As you say, I need some food and the baby is restless. I would rather…"

"Follow me, K'Shai." Neh'rti barked without concern, headed directly to the door to the main corridor.

K'Shai gritted her teeth, trying to stifle down a protesting groan and whine, feeling quite torn between the composed and strong hunter warrior expectant mother she was supposed to be, and the moody, tired, and sorely temperamental barely-out-of-being-a-teenager about to throw a tantrum that she felt like becoming.

As she approached the ominous looking doorway to the lift, she could not only hear, but _feel_ the rumbling Yautja voices echoing up the shaft to their level.

She knew that a typical capacity for the Clan ship was around twelve-thousand, and throughout her entire stay thus far, there had been less than one quarter that amount on the ship at any given time, making most of it feel like a ghost town.

Instead of being threatening and forboding, though, the empty vessel, with its massive and wide vacant corridors, and only the occasional resounding echo of metal on metal creaking, or ticking of some Yautja passing by, was warm and comforting, easy to get lost in, and interesting to explore.

In the past many months, K'Shai had definitely been through every corridor, every level, whether she was supposed to be there or not, at least once. She found empty corridors, empty rooms, empty kehrites, empty temples.

As she became nothing more than a familiar sight aboard the ship, an oddity that was now normal in the hallways between the docking bay, the mei'sa, and the cantinas, she drew less and less attention from any Yautja, and the empty corridors felt oddly even more empty as each adjusted to the other.

Now, as almost ten thousand Yautja piled back into the ship in a matter of days, the corridors became heavily congested and uncomfortable, and yet more were due back.

Over the next several weeks, as the war effort concluded according to plan, more than triple the normal occupancy would all pile into the ship. She had been told that on the initial trip to Earth, there were even more aboard.

With so many new hunters arriving hour by hour, everything she had long since adjusted to was new again.

All the Yautja who had never even seen her, only heard stories, turned her comfortable living environment into an uncomfortable spectacle and all she wanted to do was remain out of sight and mind in the mei'sa or the command room and await R'chnt's return.

Even just getting to the quiet comforts of R'chnt's vessel had become such an ordeal, it had been at least four rotations since she had even tried.

K'Shai felt queasy in her stomach as she thought about the numbers aboard while silently trailing a few steps behind Neh'rti, who indelicately punched the panel on the wall to the lift and stepped in. The rumbling voices drew nearer as the wall-less platform descended down the shaft.

How the ship could possibly house so many Yautja for the journey back to the homeworld, without bursting at the seams, was hard for her to imagine. And to think, _less_ would be returning to Yaut than had come to Earth in the first place.

As it was now, the corridors and rooms were so heavily packed it was uncomfortable to move or even breathe.

She could not fathom how the Yautja themselves handled the even more crowded accommodations on the ship during the inbound flight.

Visions of Yautja fighting endlessly, sleeping in corridors, drinking, sparring, and generally making a mess for the 'aseigan to clean, while parading around trying to impress each other and the females with their displays filled her head as the lift glided to a stop and the door opened to the main level of the atoll.

"R'chnt!" K'Shai beamed and bolted past Neh'rti with no regard.

She did not hear the Clan Leader growl her displeasure as she howled her delighted laughter and threw herself into him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck and tucking her head under his jaw line.

He clicked and chortled deeply, eagerly greeting her as he said her name in a rumbling purr that sounded filled with pleasure at the sight and feel of her.

"You're back early! I'm so glad you're back… and early! Are you done? Do you have to go back? Why did you come back early? You didn't even let me know."

"Matters to attend here, K'Shai." He said simply with a chuckle and delicately lowered her to her feet.

He nodded to Neh'rti and turned through the corridor. K'Shai followed readily along with him, but kept herself wedged more behind him than next to him.

He glanced to her as he started through the corridors, noticing how she was walking, pressed close to him, and yet partially hidden behind him. Her scent the moment she saw him had been strong and pleasant; that now familiar mixture of alien and Yautja pheromones that told her mood far more clearly than she could even convey in words.

Within a few moments, barely by the end of the corridor as R'chnt growled the aisles clear for their passing, he sensed her _h'dui-se_ had changed again. It was permeated with an alien aroma that overrode the Yautja scents she could emanate and it was message he was all too familiar with from her, and had once thought was gone.

He thought back to one time on Earth during a hunt when K'Shai and her human group of friends had willingly followed R'chnt and his hunting pack into a hive underground.

Though they had followed along obediently, it became clear once they were well enough underground that the humans had no idea what they were getting themselves into. The pack of would-be fighters were about as inexperienced as mei'sa children, and R'chnt had learned something about the species that he had not realized during that experience; how poor their vision was.

As K'Shai and the others clattered into one another and grappled the walls of the hive around them trying to figure out where they were, K'Shai herself had walked right into the back of him, and spent the next few minutes clinging to his belt as she followed him.

He had growled under his breath to her in annoyance, but he hadn't known her quite so well at that point. As he thought about it though, he was not convinced that it was the physical contact that had annoyed him, nor the cumbersome way she handled herself in the tomb void of external light; it was the scent of fear emanating off of her that had caught his attention the most.

She was frightened and it was exceedingly obvious.

He recalled thinking how any creature so full of fright could have ever managed to survive, other than by fleeing like a _pyota._

Yet the thought did strike him that despite her fear, there she was, clinging to him moving forward and for perhaps the first time since they had first met, she was putting her trust into him fully, to guide her safely, to protect her.

Now, though the scent was far more subtle, he knew it well enough to recognize it instantly. He walked with her slowly and carefully, studying her quizzically as they moved from one corridor to another, trying to comprehend why she emanated fear, and noting that yet again despite her obvious concerns, she still followed him.

He eyed the hunters that crowded the hallways with enough of a glare to send most of them scattering away from his presence, eyes dropped. Each time a crowd formed, he felt K'Shai nudge into him a little bit tighter and although he could not figure out why, he suddenly realized that she was frightened of the Yautja around them.

He had returned to the Clan ship earlier than he expected for several reasons, and amongst those reasons was K'Shai. She was adapting well to life with the Yautja; he could see that much for himself just by looking at her.

He had certainly not expected the level of interest she would attract for herself amongst the hunters and it alarmed him.

While he was pleased by her displays of strength and dominance, which were ever growing and enough to impress the females on the council, he had heard far too prolific talk about her from males, young and elder alike.

He knew she had previously spent much of her time defiantly away from the mei'sa, and in the last few rotations had suddenly taken to withdrawing into it and avoiding all contact with the now growing population of returning hunters at all.

This pleased him, to see her adjusting to life in the mei'sa so well. By remaining notably separate, K'Shai had not only confirmed her status as a Blood female of the Clan, but also simultaneously, and undesirably attracted even more attention than when she made her presence known.

As it was when they spent time hidden away in the K'ojol while he was recovering, once again, talk of the alien who kept out of sight seemed to flood the ship. With the returning numbers, the rise of such talk was alarming. As she walked with him, he had expected her display to announce yet again to the new eyes spying them that she was his and only his.

As he headed towards his destination with K'Shai in tow, though, the message she delivered was something quite different.

She was heavily pregnant, and perhaps that was the reason for her discomfort in the corridors amongst the Yautja, all of whom stepped well out of the way to let them pass. Still, she continued to press herself into him.

She walked by his side, but only just barely, with a portion of her body still hidden behind his. She was silently asking him for protection, when she had established herself without it. He considered her curiously as he continued to the meeting hall on the far side of the ship.

He had other matters that the council had elicited him to perform, which pulled him away from the hunt, much to his disinterest. The hunt was slowing.

On the planet's surface, he had done more walking and surveying than actual killing in the last many short rotations of the alien sun and moon. While he was more inclined to continue on with tracking and pushing for more chances to eliminate the hard meat, he was far less inclined to facilitate in council matters.

He was, however most certainly inclined to return to the Clan ship and rejoin K'Shai.

He thought about her unique position, and the unique attention it was drawing to the both of them while they walked towards the hall. Once they got out of the busier sections nearer to the cantinas and common areas, the corridors became more notably quiet and with that, K'Shai more relaxed.

He eyed her quizzically as he guided her into the meeting hall. Her scent had shifted, telling him she was no longer anxious or fearful, and he had found himself wondering, as he stepped through the threshold into the hall, if she was anxious about the crowds, or about his sudden return, or perhaps their destination in the ship, since he was clearly not taking her towards the K'ojol.

R'chnt pondered K'Shai as he gazed at her while she walked into the meeting hall as though she had been there a hundred times, and he assumed she probably had frequently visited it while it was empty, no doubt to gaze at her world beyond the windows that lined the elongated room, just as she did now.

He focused his thoughts so deeply on to her and the child in her womb, so quickly matured that K'Shai looked about ready to give birth at any moment, he did not even hear one of the council elders bark his name, or another one chortle a comment about his mate's distracting musk.

"Does K'Shai have an interest in inter-clan negotiations?" One of the elders in the room balked to her.

R'chnt approached the long meeting table with a growl. K'Shai turned and stared quizzically at the four elders already gathered around it as R'chnt reached for a pitcher and casually poured himself a mug of drink, saying nothing. She turned to face him and he clicked his tusks for a moment.

"I have been summoned here to help with _clan diplomacy_." He growled.

She couldn't help but notice the utterly displeased, almost sarscastic chuff with the last two words. He had told her many times that he was a _doer_ not a _thinker_ , and as she smiled thinly, she unconsciously rubbed her swollen belly.

"Why?" She asked.

R'chnt bellowed in absolute amusement as he approached K'Shai and prominently offered her a second mug of the a'gha juice.

"You see, even K'Shai knows my place in not at the negotiable table. I prefer my _negotations_ be conducted in the kehrite. Spear or no spear." He laughed heartily.

"No, that's not what I…" K'Shai started, obviously seeing that R'chnt misinterpreted her question.

She realized she may possibly have offended him or embarrassed him by implying that he was not up to the task of interclan diplomacy, whatever that meant exactly. She had a worrying notion that perhaps the matter involved her in some way she probably wasn't going to like.

"Some of the council seemed to have gotten the idea that I might be a good choice for diplomat, K'Shai." He said with a tone of amusement, not embarrassment.

"I can't imagine why." A booming voice echoed in from the doorway.

K'Shai craned her neck past R'chnt as he turned and noticed, R'gyhn-de one of R'chnt's brothers that she had met on Earth. The two greeted each other with a hearty and brisk hand-on-the-shoulder gesture that they displayed as almost a little more like a "fist bump" than a handshake; an aggressive, but good-natured greeting between two well-acquainted Yautja.

"R'chnt had an entire pack of humans following his orders and joining him on hunts." He boasted loudly to the room.

R'chnt grumbled, apparently displeased by the compliment on his diplomacy skills. K'Shai smirked in amusement, thinking vaguely about a joke W'rsa had once said to them both that R'chnt clearly knew something the Yautja did not about how to interact with humans, _especially_ the female ones.

R'gyhn-de approached K'Shai and surveyed her, clicking his tusks together in consideration for a moment before he dropped his head, bowing respectfully to her without a word. His manners towards her suggested he was not only pleased by what he saw of her, but also aware enough of her status to stay quite formal and respectful and well away from her.

He bore more injuries than the last time she had encountered him, but he carried himself with such power and presence K'Shai thought an intimidating posture must just run in their bloodlines.

Slowly council elders from other clans began to fill the room with heat, chittering tusks, strong musk and the alcoholic aroma of c'ntlip, which nearly intoxicated K'Shai just by smelling it.

She moved away from the scent as much as she could and watched R'chnt move around the room, pacing like a caged wolf, drawing an invisible line between K'Shai and the rest of the room, which no one dared cross including K'Shai.

The inter-clan negotiations, she thought, were shockingly mundane. The males mingled amongst themselves and drank their brews. There was no fighting, no real displays of aggression, and K'Shai watched with curious interest, suddenly finding herself wondering when the arguments were going to start; when the weapons were going to come out; when someone was going to start bleeding or be flung across the room in a furious fit of "diplomacy".

Then she realized there were still twice as many chairs at the table than Yautja in the room. It seemed they were all waiting on more arrivals.

Some of the Yautja, perhaps serving roles of apprentice, she couldn't be sure, stayed well out of the way and watched with varying degrees of interest. Two more males entered the room, followed soon thereafter by females, and the room fell alarmingly quiet at that point.

Neh'rti and S'ridi appeared in their own due time, showing minimal interest in many of the lesser clans' representatives and only really acknowledging their own Clan's leaders, including R'chnt, and even nodded respectfully to K'Shai, who promptly bowed her head in return.

One more male, a bulky looking Yautja with blue-tinged skin and whitish-yellow eyes stomped into the room, flanked by two, significantly shorter and scrawny looking, but heavily armored youngbloods.

He marched proudly, though a bit cumbersomely, into the room. He was a large framed hunter, not as slim and graceful moving like R'chnt, who could tiptoe with cat-like stealth.

Immediately, the hunter's eyes locked onto K'Shai. He started directly towards her without acknowledging a single Yautja, as if he was specifically there to see her. K'Shai suddenly felt like withdrawing from the room entirely.

The way the newest male approached, as if she was somehow his business, caused her mind to flash with an entirely fictitious chain of events in which she was traded off to this Yautja for some reason.

She did not know what was about to transpire, but she did not want the new hunter anywhere near her and R'chnt was entirely too far away from her as far as she was concerned. As if feeling her sudden nervousness, the baby in her womb kicked as hard as she possibly could, revealing new levels of Yautja strength K'Shai would never imagined a baby could possess.

She noticeably flinched with an uncomfortable grunt to accompany it. Poor timing at best, because it made the blue-skinned hunter looming towards her chuff heartily and spread his upper tusks widely; brimming ear to ear in a heartily amused smile as it were, as if his presence had caused K'Shai to falter.

"So this is the _ooman_ who threatened to destroy my ship?" He bellowed. "Somehow, I thought she would be bigger. Fragile looking little thing. You have Yaujta tenacity, though don't you? You no doubt make a fine mate."

R'chnt, Neh'rti and S'ridi all approached without delay, growling and jumping into action around K'Shai and suddenly K'Shai was rather well buried behind a protective wall of Yautja bodies, with the Clan leader at the forefront, and R'chnt closest to her.

She could feel his warmth emanating from him soothingly, a stark contrast to the deep growl that was emanating while his glaring eyes burned a warning right through the blatantly disrespectful hunter, who backed down quickly.

Neh'rti barked her command to the entire room and without delay, all took their seats. K'Shai remained close to R'chnt, who guided her to a seat next to him at the table. Though she had nothing to add to the conversations that ensued for the next several hours, K'Shai remained attentive and quiet. The matter at hand, much to her relief, did not concern her at all.

The Clan councils of five of the largest Clans and the Leaders and their aides of three smaller clans had all converged to discuss territory and population issues. K'Shai was rather surprised at the level of Yautja diplomacy extended around the table during the discussions.

By the time they had broken for the day, little had been resolved and there was much arguing, but tempers remained at acceptable levels for Yautja, and no fights broke out. No blood was shed.

After a few hours spent between sitting with R'chnt over drinks and a meal in an overcrowded cantina, and switching to a table full of females, K'Shai was sufficiently exhausted enough to tackle returning to the K'ojol for some rest. She rose to do so and was utterly relieved when R'chnt joined her immediately.

Instead of K'Shai trying to glare her way through the corridors, R'chnt did it for her with his powerful presence and deep growl to anyone who did not move quickly enough. Although, with the way the infant was kicking and pounding on her, she was annoyed, moody, and tired enough to produce a quality Yautja growl of her own.

"Soak?" R'chnt asked as he slipped out of his loin cloth and prepared to enter his bath.

K'Shai pressed her lips together and shook her head slowly. "I'm just tired."

She crawled into the bed, between the luscious sheets and before she dropped herself into the warm comfort they offered, she looked to R'chnt with a soft smile.

"I'm so glad you came back," she said quietly.

With that, he headed into the bath and she soon found herself in a deep sleep that suddenly became interrupted. She wasn't sure how long she had been out, but she woke groggily and tired, feeling her heart pounding. She was in pure darkness.

There was nothing familiar around her at all; no scents, no sounds. She could not see anything. Where she was and how she got there she had no idea. She groped around her in the darkness and tried to find any walls, any hint of where she was; locked in a room perhaps?

She could not control her pounding heart and in a few moments, the rapid beating and her own parched, throaty rasps of breath filled her ears. Suddenly a form took shape in the darkness, appearing out of the incomprehensible depths with its shimmering metallic teeth like the stuff of nightmares.

The _hard meat_ lunged at her with its claws forward. Its wild shriek seared through her body in an instant, and with a scream, K'Shai jumped.

Howling, K'Shai leapt upright, finding herself in the familiar surroundings of R'chnt's chambers, still under the golden colored sheets. R'chnt, alarmed by her sudden outburst appeared into the bed chamber, soaking wet from his bath.

K'Shai glanced around the room to make sure she knew exactly where she was as R'chnt drew close to her. She threw herself forward into him and wrapped her around around him, feeling his heat, comforted by his strength.

She shook off the nightmare although she did not release her grip on R'chnt. He purred gently as he shifted himself under her and she leaned in against him, finally falling asleep again pressed into his wet, bare chest.

R'chnt did not move, he simply held K'Shai and watched her sleep while the infant within her kicked and shook her fists from time to time.

He had never seen K'Shai have such a restless sleep, but even in his arms that night, she grumbled and fidgeted while never opening her eyes. She had been relieved to see him return, elated to know that the effort on her world was coming to a close, and yet she was disturbed by thoughts and worries and fears of all she had experienced.

He was perplexed by her tendency to fret over past events, and now, it seemed that that process had begun to invade her unconscious mind as well.

K'Shai spent her days attending to the negotiations and Clan business alongside R'chnt if she was not in the mei'sa. She had nothing to contribute in the meeting hall, but she did quietly learn, absorbing all that she saw and heard.

The visiting leaders grew more accustomed to seeing her as part of the proceedings, but K'Shai had a legitimate excuse to be away, as well. She was female, bearing a child, and it was understood that any child-bound female was prone to quirky at best behaviour which the males most certainly did not even attempt to concern themselves with.

The strain of the baby was causing her fatigue, but more so were the sleepless nights that began to plague her. Night after night, K'Shai would lay in the safety of R'chnt's chambers aboard the K'ojol and by the time seven rotations had passed, she had dealt with nightmares so consistently, it could almost be planned for. R'chnt preemptively cradled her into his arms and she slept more soundly, but still, the _kainde amedha_ always came to frighten her in her dreams.

"This is crazy. The war is ending, R'chnt. My world is getting safe and cleared, and I don't even live there anymore. I don't understand this. I know I'm safe here. I just want this to stop." She whispered to him from the security of his arms. "Why does this keep happening?"

He said nothing, merely reassuring her with purrs and the warmth of his arms, as he continued to do night after night while she grew more restless, more discontent.

"What happened to it?" She asked in shock one day, when she returned to his chambers to find the _kainde amedha_ trophy skull head that was once above the bed missing. The spot had been filled in with other trophies and weapons.

"It will be returned to my home, displayed somewhere else."

She looked at him with a gracious smile and felt immediately guilty, but grateful. That night as she slept, the blackness in her mind still filled with terrifying images of salivating metallic teeth and ferociously wild hissing. Again and again, K'Shai was disturbed from her sleep by the shrieking calls of the deadly beasts.

She pulled herself tightly into R'chnt and he wrapped his arms around her, purring soothingly, trying to settle her as she broke down sobbing over and over. R'chnt was not sure what she needed from him, or how to make her dreams stop. Neither of them understood why, in the threshold of the finality of the war, the nightmares took hold.

He had inquired with some of the other elders in the vaguest way possible, so as not to give away any indication that K'Shai was troubled, but none of them were familiar enough with humans to really offer insight. He had even gone to L'ruch to discuss the matter, knowing full well that K'Shai and he talked readily.

L'ruch had no real input on the matter, either, except that he should continue to do what he was doing, and allow whatever process she was going through to pass.

"This is a challenge for you, K'Shai. One for you to battle and master." He said to her supportively as he held her.

"I don't think I can." She whispered in a soft moan.


	15. Chapter 15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

As the days turned into weeks, K'Shai found her dreams plagued by dark, hissing, and shrieking images. She awoke from interrupted sleep after interrupted sleep sweating, trembling, heart racing. She would instinctively clutch her abdomen, whether to guard her unborn offspring from dangers that were not really there or to reassure it that they weren't there she was sometimes unsure.

She would press herself firmly into R'chnt, who would always wrap his arm around her and purr his reasurrances to her.

He helped her with focusing her mind, though she got the definite idea he did not understand the nature of her anxiety. Still, every time she slept, whether it was during the day or night on Earth, she couldn't be sure, and it did not seem to matter, she found herself fretting and tossing and turning and ultimately startling bolt upright only to fall asleep again in his arms.

If she woke and he was not there, she would go find him. R'chnt was frequently occupied with the Clan affairs his elders had requested him to participate in. Though he consistently maintained his disinterest in such business, it was obvious to K'Shai that his input was considered invaluable. When he spoke, the room silenced and even Neh'rti graciously allowed him uninterrupted dialogue.

Each time she found R'chnt amongst the other elders, either in the meeting hall, or elsewhere on the vessel, he greeted her readily and chased someone away so she could sit next to him.

K'Shai had little to offer at the negotiations, but her presence was allowed, almost seemingly preferred. Two lesser clans had petitioned for acceptance into the stronger clans, including the Kaunte Dar'een.

Too weakened by great losses of hunters, the lesser clans knew they would head for certain extinction as there were not enough numbers left to continue their progeny, protect their territories, and provide strength to their clans.

The females of the lesser clans worked out the matter of which stronger clans would accept them rather easily; the Kaunte Dar'een Clan had enough issues with accepting new unexpected females into it, and Neh'rti made a point of noting that.

She also maintained that any lesser females who petitioned for acceptance into her Clan would be stripped of all status and be recognized as something barely over 'aseigan until they earned their place on the social ladder.

K'Shai had come to understand that the two clans that had been nearly completely devastated by the Earth War were so weak in status even before it, that Neh'rti almost completely disregarded them. The matter only involved the Kaunte Dar'een Clan at all because both lesser clans had territory that bordered an Eastern edge of Neh'rti's Clan and it was good land to expand into; a worthwhile venture for the Clan.

When the lesser Yautja, disheveled from their former territories by the arrangements that had been reached, naturally petitioned for admittance into the Kaunte Dar'een, Neh'rti gave the request exactly so much consideration as she deemed worthy of her time, which was nearly none.

She was not impressed by the clan's trophies or lineage and considered the fact that they were so weak they were nearly all killed off during the Earth war proof that they had little to offer to add to the strength of the Kaunte Dar'een.

Neh'rti was unbudging on the point and the lesser female Yautja, now territory-less and clanless, and essentially powerless, wisely chose not to protest the fact.

K'Shai could not quite figure out if her presence during the meetings was to prove a point or aggravate the Yautja who were turned away. Either way, she realized it was all a display of power and pride on Neh'rti's part, and rather insulting to the weakened clans.

K'Shai felt the burn of the stares from the members of the other clans as they eyed her up with a definite _but you'll accept that thing_ sort of gaze and towards the end of the negotiations K'Shai could not help but feel like they were right.

Neh'rti demanded strength above all else, especially from the females of her Clan. She knew the reason she was, however reluctantly, accepted into the Clan was only because of R'chnt's powerful status to back her, and not anything she had done on Earth during the war. The scars she bore, the proof of her victories, the mere fact that she even survived, while enough to at least pique R'chnt's favor, did nothing to impress Neh'rti. K'Shai was certain nothing would impress Neh'rti.

The females of the lesser clans had only lesser females to petition for their acceptance, and the few males left in the weakened clans likewise did not earn much merit in the eyes of the Kaute Dar'een Clan leader. She based her decisions on bloodlines and she was openly prejudice to Yautja not of the Kaunte Dar'een as it was. At least to that end, the offspring K'Shai carried would stand a better chance of finding favor with Neh'rti, due to the strong bloodlines that sired her.

K'Shai considered that thought as she watched the negotiations end, watched pure-blooded Yautja be rejected from acceptance into the strongest of the strongest Clans while she and her hybrid offspring stood amongst them. She could not help but feel tremendously inferior and undeserving. As the past two years caught up to her and reminded her through her nightmares of what she had seen and been through.

She felt as though no matter what she tried, she would always be unworthy of Neh'rti's approval, though she hoped that her growing daughter would not have the same difficulties, since she was fifty percent comprised of R'chnt's powerful bloodlines.

As she watched R'chnt dance around the kehrite slamming his bladed weapon against his opponents' counter attacks she thought about his position in the Clan and on the hunt, and her continued problems with the terrible memories that haunted her.

R'chnt was used to a violent existence and he handled that unmistakable brutality with composure and elegance and without any consideration. He fought, he bled, he killed and he dominated, and he did so without compassion or regard. He maintained that K'Shai had a strength and power that she was quite sure he was mistaken about.

She stood in a doorway at the perimeter of the kehrite watching him fight his opponents. He growled and bellowed with each powerful strike.

K'Shai stroked her belly silently as she eyed him, so enraptured by the presence and sheer controlled brutality of him she could barely take her eyes off him. He moved confidently, strong, and forcefully, oozing dominance with every blow. His tresses whipped around him and the beads that adorned them clattered together as they settled for a moment and then whipped around again as he flared his mandibles, howled emphasis everytime he slashed at his opponents or landed a striking blow with his unarmed fist.

The males handled the matter of acceptance rather differently than females, always up for any good excuse for a spar.

Though Neh'rti made the final decision of who would be accepted into the clan, the males preferred to settle the matter of admittance from the middle of the kehrite.

R'chnt was perfectly at home testing out the mettle three of the hunters who were amongst the group wanting to join into the Kaunte Dar'een. To K'Shai's momentary horror, the large male who had approached her in the meeting hall was amongst them.

Compared to R'chnt's lean and muscular build, the larger Yautja looked like a gorilla, she thought. R'chnt moved with power and precision, flexing his toned muscles as he danced around the oval sparring room. He was built like a racehorse; honed to an absolute pinnacle of performance and power.

One of the opponents he squared off with was considerably shorter than him. Another was almost as tall and so lean he looked anorexic, with every bone showing through his skin.

The leader of them was large, boorish, and compared to R'chnt's narrow and fit frame, looked outright fat. He had oversized upper arms that almost made him seem like he stood lurched forward.

He moved heavily, cumbersomely; not at all like the catty athletic elegance of his opponent. R'chnt was teaching her the same ways as he, to move with precision and careful, light steps.

Though she doubted she would ever manage to stalk and move and strike like him, she had at least hoped to some degree she was able to move more agily than the oversized hunter R'chnt faced off with.

He bellowed throatily every time he took a hit and shook spittle around the room as his thick, mostly unadorned tresses flopped dully. Though the goal of the challenge was not to kill, merely to test the worthiness of the hunters who sought to enter the Clan, blood was certainly drawn.

It was simply expected and understood; seek to prove your worth, and you will prove it by bloodshed, especially when you boast your sparring skills under the glaring scrutiny of a lock-jawed and unimpressed Clan Leader.

K'Shai glanced around to the rest of the spectators watching the display with waning interest. R'chnt was single handedly proving that none of the would-be new members were worthwhile. Neh'rti had turned her back on the spar all together; a sure sign that the males would not be entering her Clan.

The other females quickly followed behind her and then some of the male spectators slowly began to leave.

Only a few continued to watch the spar. K'Shai had found herself casting her eyes down towards her belly; not out of boredom or disinterest in the fight, but more out of deep contemplation of the child growing within her when a booming howl echoed out and the clattering of weapons hitting the ground caught her, and everyone else's, attention.

R'chnt had had enough of the spar. The two flanking youngbloods looked hesitant and lackluster as they had been commanded obviously against their desires, by their leader to square off against him.

They took one look at R'chnt and he immediately saw their hearts skip a few beats and the color drain from their spots. They feigned fake assaults just enough to look like they were doing something and it was getting annoying. It was obvious the two young hunters were worn and weary from their efforts on the alien world, but that was of no concern to him.

He knew immediately that the youngsters were not up to the challenge of joining the Clan, but they were left little choice as it was their leader, who eyed K'Shai up entirely too much, that had petitioned and they were obligated to follow his command or challenge him to the death to become leader themselves so they may make the decisions.

R'chnt had a suspicion that the two youngsters were hoping he might _accidentally_ kill their Leader for that very reason. A poor Leader, R'chnt was certain. No doubt he had edged his way up to that rank by a combination of luck and lack of challengers due to his unusual size. He _was_ intimidating to look at, but it was backed up by a poor level of skill and mostly obvious, brute-force attacks.

As R'chnt worked through the spar, carefully calculating his attacks, he noticed how the leader of the clan-less Yautja continually eyed up K'Shai on the sidelines. He bellowed to draw her attention and over emphasized every strike he made at R'chnt, moving awkwardly and deliberately, clearly trying to put on quite a show of his undeniable prowess.

His efforts made him more cumbersomely belligerent than he already was. He howled toyingly with delight as if he was somehow getting the upper hand beyond R'chnt's wit, and yet continually danced evasively without really ever acting on all the dramatics he was generating.

He smugly acted as though he was drawing worthwhile attention, as if he was accomplishing something other than bleeding and spitting all over the kehrite, when in fact the spectators were losing interest quickly at the lack of fighting in the fight.

Neh'rti had long since exited the kehrite, but R'chnt's bulky opponent glanced to K'Shai yet again, clearly trying to see if her attention was still on him. It was not; she was looking at her heavily pregnant belly, and the brash Leader had eyed her too long for too many times.

R'chnt howled out an attention-catching roar, to which K'Shai immediately looked up. He grappled the leader, lacing one arm behind both his arms and landed a powerful kick to his lower legs, sufficiently pummeling the obnoxious leader to the metal floor grating.

R'chnt allowed his bellowing growl to fade away in a long echo as the downed leader, looking rather humiliated, tried his best to continue with his show as if being down, bruised, and now bleeding from a crack in the back of his cranial ridges, was all part of his intention.

Noticing his poorly veiled attempts at eyeing K'Shai yet one more time, R'chnt growled angrily and lunged forward, grabbing him up off the ground and tossing him into a pillar a dozen feet away just for good measure before he spun on his heels and strode prominently over to K'Shai.

He clamped his hand down on her shoulder and she gazed at him with a small smile. R'chnt pulled his upper tusks apart slightly, returning the grin and bowed his head gracefully as he surveyed her, watching the child in her womb kick and thrash her mother with her tiny fists.

"Not exactly Kaunte Dar'een material?" K'Shai asked quietly as they both turned out of the kehrite.

"Hardly." R'chnt grumbled dismally, sounding rather disappointed that the spar was not more challenging. "Not even a _good spar_. His bones would be best ground down."

A severe insult, K'Shai knew. Bones of worthy opponents were prized and valued. Even bones of animals hunted for their meat were used for jewelry and room ornamentations or smaller trophies on hunting sashes. Every part of the prey was ultimately used in some fashion.

Although the Yautja were violent, brutal, and vicious, they had a profound respect of life and death that K'Shai was barely beginning to understand. Even prey hunted for food was respected enough to be fully utilized.

Bodies of valued hunters were incinerated, either in a massive furnace, such as the one in the lower level near the morgue on the atoll, or in a more formal ceremony on the homeworld dependent on status. For the bones of an opponent to be only worth grinding down, was the equivalent of treating them like mud on your boots.

The only other insult as severe as that would be for one Yautja to display the tusks of another on a sash around their neck or body, or use a Yautja skull as armor adornment. K'Shai had learned that such things were usually done when an arbitrator hunted and killed a bad blood.

R'chnt poised himself proudly as he glared back across the sparring arena. The burly leader pulled himself up off the floor rather clumsily, gripping his now bleeding lower jaw while the other two of his group looked on from a wary distance, seemingly a little uncertain of what the small, clanless pack would do next.

Such matters were of no consequence to R'chnt or K'Shai and without any more consideration, R'chnt turned, directing K'Shai out of the room with his hand lightly pressed between her shoulder blades.

They walked through the bustling corridors of the atoll and K'Shai wedged herself as close to R'chnt as possible, trying very noticeably to avoid being crowded. R'chnt sensed her _h'dui'se_ displaying her discomfort once again.

They visited a cantina for a while; R'chnt was certain some relaxing activities and a little food and drink would do K'Shai well.

"You must eat, K'Shai. You have barely touched your food."

Distracted by the thunderous noise in the room, K'Shai barely even heard the low pitch of R'chnt's naturally growling-toned voice. He repeated his words, this time with a little prod to her shoulder, catching semi-stunned stares from the other males at the table who were still uncomfortable with the idea of touching a female without her direct say so. They marveled at R'chnt, who lived through the experience, as K'Shai turned to him.

"What? It's so loud. What did you say?"

"Eat!" He said again in a supportive tone.

Understanding R'chnt's tones was something of an acquired skill, K'Shai briefly thought. Discerning between a pleasant growl and an annoyed growl or an angry growl and a playful growl was something she had never before imagined would be necessary for her to do. He raised his voice only enough so that she could hear him as he urged her to nourish herself and the growing offspring in her womb.

K'Shai cringed at a sudden elevation in noise that just happened to coincide with a disturbed thunk to the inside of her uterus.

"Why does it always have to sound like a party in here? Is there something to celebrate every hour?"

R'chnt chortled a laugh and the others at the time chuckled the same.

"K'Shai! A hunter lives to tell the tale, is that not celebration enough?"

"But they're not singing about a living hunter! They're singing about a dead one!" She combatted quickly in momentary annoyance.

A small group of elite hunters, fueled by drink and hormones, had begun blaring out lyrics and soon, it had turned into a large group of Yautja.

 _R'hyju-de was proud, the strongest of them all. He hunted that which was mighty and strong. His trophies upon the wall, the scars in his skin, the blood on his hands, the blood runs true! The mighty hunter stalked his prey until the end of day, and the trophies one by one, came down. The trophies came down. The hunter, strong and fierce, lost his trophies as well as his head!_

Over and over the hunters repeated the words, drinking every single time they hit the end of the verse. It barely made sense as a song, and the emphatic way they sang it made it sound like a bloody-version of ' _99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall'._

"Ugh!" K'Shai exclaimed, finally popping a piece of fruit into her mouth that was entirely too large.

"I want to go lay down," she muttered over the squishy fruit.

Without question, R'chnt stood and started to follow her out of the cantina. She walked quickly towards the door, through the aisle between the tables as hunters sat and bellowed and drank around her. As soon as she turned the corner out of the cantina, she immediately hesitated and tucked against R'chnt, nearly behind him.

Contrary to a typical Yautja female, who would simply barge through the packed crowds with little regard for anyone in her path, physically knocking down a male if he was too slow to get out of her way, K'Shai preferred to use R'chnt as shelter.

She transitioned between walking firmly or stepping with reservation, and R'chnt had noticed that it seemed to depend on her mood, which could switch hour to hour, sometimes even minute by minute, especially as the time drew nearer and nearer to the inevitable birth of their offspring.

She grew quiet and carefully withdrew from the crowds around her, pressing so close to him she may well have been trying to crawl under his body netting. He welcomed the contact and flared his tusks warningly to the hunters crowding the hallways before them, pridefully accepting the position she had silently requested of him.

He growled a deep warning, broadcasting to to clear the path and give his heavily in-child mate plenty of room. They responded accordingly, pressing themselves as far away from him and his alien mate as they could.

Immediately, K'Shai's scent changed as she grew somewhat more relaxed, but she continued to press herself so close to him that their bodies brushed into each other as they walked while she stroked her belly absent mindedly until they had finally reached the quiet of the hallway just outside the mei'sa.

"She's getting close, R'chnt. She'll be here in a few rotations. What are we going to name her?" She asked in a whisper as they stopped in the corridor.

"Name?!" He bellowed with a deep chortle. "No name until she is ready for chiva."

"Oh, no!" K'Shai retorted with a dismissive laugh.

"None of that waiting until I'm dead to name the kid. I don't have a hundred years. I'm having her now; she's getting a name now. Humans name their babies before they even are born. She's getting close and she needs a name."

R'chnt shook his head slowly, amusedly contemplating K'Shai's position on the matter and yet again considering the many differences between Yautja and humans.

"So strange, your people, K'Shai. Naming an offspring before it is even _born? Why?"_

K'Shai smiled thinly, pressing her lips together as she nudged R'chnt with her body delicately. She followed him through the corridor, rattling off Yautjan names idly.

"You prefer a Yautja name, not a human name?" R'chnt asked.

"Don't you?" She asked with a curious nod of her head.

He had not thought of it, for naming the offspring seemed like something so irrelevant as it would be years before a name was given to it, he had not even remotely considered it. Males would not be responsible for naming their offspring anyway. He tried to contemplate why humans would name an offspring before birth and why the sire was even consulted on such matters, but he simply could not truly understand the confusing nature of the human species. He supposed that as she learned more about Yautja ways, her unusual human tendancies would subside.

For now, he indulged her.

"Yes." He said simply, as she still stared at him with wide waiting eyes.

"What about A'ryin'di?" She said after running through half a dozen more names.

R'chnt nodded approvingly.

"A good choice. A strong name. Do you know what it means?" He said.

K'Shai hummed aloud. "Something about a fiery sword?"

R'chnt chuckled quietly, clicking his tusks together amusedly.

"Fire of the Sword," he corrected. "When a strong Yautja truly burns with the fire of the Gods, they are said to have the fire of the sword in their very bones and when they die, that fire burns their bones in honor of the Gods they have pleased."

"I think it's perfect. She will have her father'sfire, for certain." She said with a brimming smile.

"I was going to say the same thing about her mother." R'chnt ticked lightly pulling jut one tusk away into a sideways grin.

He eyed K'Shai with tightly-knit tusks. The matter of naming the offspring, settled, K'Shai knew his gaze was telling her she was not coming wherever he was going.

"What is it?" She asked apprehensively.

"Final matters on your world I must tend to, K'Shai. You will remain in the mei'sa and we will be united soon."

"R'chnt…" she whispered softly, carefully scanning her surroundings to ensure no one was around to overhear. "This baby is coming. _Soon_. I don't want to be away from you when I go into labor."

"K'Shai… females…."

"I know. I _know_ ," she growled emphatically, briefly shutting her eyes, and shaking her head and hands. "Females give birth in the mei'sa surrounded by other females. Males aren't part of that. I don't care, R'chnt. I want you with me. How long will you be gone? I don't want to be away from you."

"Soon, my K'Shai. Soon."

He departed after a brief goodbye, though K'Shai remained in the corridor outside the mei'sa door until R'chnt had long since disappeared out of sight. She had watched R'chnt depress the keypad at the lift to wait for it's arrival. She watched the door open and he stepped inside, turned and nodded deeply to her before the door slid closed.

She felt her skin prickle as she watched the closed doors and she continued to stand quietly in the corridor outside the mei'sa, being passed by the occasional Yautja who did not even acknowledge her.

R'chnt was gone, she was feeling a bit frustrated, tired from the strain of the baby against her womb, and finally hungry now that she was less disturbed, she suddenly decided she was in a bad mood. As she walked towards the mei'sa door, she must have conveyed a more familiar prescense to the Yautja in the corridors because she took note how they moved aside to allow her to pass, despite not having R'chnt has a buffer.

She strode her way through the rest of the corridor, into the mei'sa, down the adjacent hallways and into a females only lounge full of a delectable buffet. She filled a platter with meats, nuts, and fruits, and something sweet, that was called _lo'tau_ that rather seemed to resemble cheesecake, before returning to her assigned chambers where she laid back to sleep. It was a restless sleep and K'Shai awoke before her terrible dreams once again became overwhelming.

She could feel her heart racing, feel the baby kicking sporadically. She sat in the quietness of her amber-hued room on the bed, listening to the murmurs of female Yautja rumbling to each other down the corridors of the mei'sa, the subtle hum of the lift at the end of the corridor, not far from her chambers and trying to fill her mind with the quietness that R'chnt had always helped her find.

She found herself unable to contain her mind, spurred on by the solitary emptiness of her chambers. The unborn child kicked a reminder that she was growing ever more restless as the hours passed. K'Shai fretted over R'chnt's departure. She did not know what remaining business he had on Earth or when she would see him again or when the baby was coming and how she was going to manage giving birth to it in his company against the ways and will of the females.

She quickly found herself frustrated over being left behind, though she did not want to return to Earth, she felt as though she should, and most of all she should have been with him. She continued combatting the nightmareish dreams of alien hissing and bone-chilling terror in blackless depths by filling her head with thoughts of the Yautja, their strength, their power, and their absolute indifference to what a human would consider traumatizing.

Despite her agitation, the following few days seemed to fly by. K'Shai kept her time occupied in the mei'sa as she had been during R'chnt's previous absences. Still, her mind constantly fluttered back and forth between what was going on on the planet's surface and what the next journey of her life would be like when A'ryin'di was born.

Almost as if her mind summoned it to happen, Neh'rti appeared in the doorway to the sitting room where K'Shai overlooked three little toddlers playing raucously before their mothers and female kin. All eyes, except for the youngsters who were gleefully oblivious as they tested each other's mettle to figure out who was the strongest, looked up to the towering Clan Leader, but her eyes were locked like a hawk on its prey onto K'Shai.

"Come with me." She barked.

Although K'Shai was comfortable, content watching the young children play, and mid-bite on a fruit that was a little like an orange in taste and texture with a deep purple rind that reminded her of an eggplant, and had no desire to join her for whatever intentions she had in mind, the tone in Neh'rti's voice was unquestionable. She stood immediately, without a word, and strode into the Leader's shadow.

K'Shai had much preferred to remain planted in the sittig room in the company of the young females and their offspring, succumbing to the feelings of her own unborn baby kicking at her nearly non stop, the almost constant state of nausea that seemed to linger in her during every waking hour, and the fatigue that she was enduring from endlessly interrupted sleep over hearing the wild shrieks of the hard meat every time she closed her eyes, while trying her best to focus her thoughts on when exactly R'chnt was going to return to the atoll and if he was going to make it back before A'ryin'di made her appearance.

All of that sounded much more pleasing to her than joining Neh'rti's company to go wherever for whatever the end result was going to be, she thought grumpily as she rose out of the oversized bone-framed leather chair and walked over to the Leader as commanded. Neh'rti did not say another word, merely turned on her heels and stalked out of the mei'sa with K'Shai following warily.

The pair was joined on the outside of the mei'sa doors by half a dozen other females, S'ridi included, who positioned herself near to K'Shai's side, silently offering up a little bit of reassurance to her just by lingering nearby.

Males of every caste cleared a path for the eight females of the Kaunte Da'reen Clan that strode through the corridors without the least bit of consideration to the coming and goings of anyone else around them.

Even from her mostly blocked position amidst a ring of alien females more than twice her size, she could see the 'aseigan jumping clear as if their very life depended on it, which of course, it most likely did. Each seemed to flash a slightly different color in alarm as the color quite obviously sank from their markings. She watched workers bow their heads deeply and flatten against walls or disappear completely into open doorways if they could. Hunters stopped in their tracks, even the highest-ranking elders and leaders, and bowed respectfully while clearing out of the way of the females.

K'Shai decided it was all a little like walking through a gauntlet of knights, especially as hunters pulled to a halt, sometimes with weapons propped before them, holding them as if presenting them to the females passing them by.

The hunters who propped up swords, spears, and other bladed weapons on long or short staffs somehow reminded K'Shai of Marines during a formal ceremony. It was like the females were getting some kind of send off. K'Shai watched them all warily as she passed them, and then eyed the corridor ahead, realizing where they were headed.

She suddenly felt nervous as the silent group of females headed prominently towards the hunt ship docking bay. Her stomach groaned and she was sure her heart had just dropped to her feet. Moving forward became difficult. Something had happened; she was sure. The Yautja were too stiff and rigid, and acting too formal as they surrounded her and walked in alarming quietness.

When the docking bay came into view, she feared looking around, certain she was going to see something awful that involved R'chnt. Had he gone off to his death? That had to be it. She found herself watching her own toes instead of looking up through the threshold of the docking bay. Her heart pounded so heavily in her breast, it was causing her to choke and as her nerves and anxiety shot upwards uncontrollably, she thought she might break down in tears right there on the spot.

Suddenly her mind flickered through an entire scenario that she found terrifying; the thought of raising her baby in the mei'sa with the females, without R'chnt there after all. In a flicker of an instant, she realized why females and males functioned the way they did, and for the briefest of moments, she understood the reasons behind the compassionless and emotionless Yautja nature.

As her toes crossed into the metal plate floor of the docking bay, she found the nerve to look up. What should would see, she did not know, and she feared it. Would the K'ojol be there? Maybe it had crashed? Would R'chnt's hunting pack be gathered around solemnly as the females escorted K'Shai to view him? She found her eyelids suddenly heavy as she forced her head up and held her breath while scanning the docking bay.

The females continued on their path without stopping and as K'Shai looked all around. Nothing was amiss. Nothing she had just imagined in the last thirty seconds had come to fruition. In fact, instead of a packed docking bay full of sullen looking Yautja, the docking bay was practically empty. There were barely even any hunt ships left in it. Before R'chnt had left, the bay was well packed with dozens of hunt ships all crammed together.

Only three remained and K'Shai suddenly was hit with the immense size of the docking bay as she looked around the emptiness of it. Only a handful of 'asiegan went about their duties in the massive space, and no one else was present at all.

Neh'rti led on, headed directly for a hunt ship with a ramp open and as the female entourage stepped on, K'Shai followed, still apprehensive about exactly what was going on, but also feeling relieved that it wasn't what she had expected.

Neh'rti and three others headed to the control room and K'Shai followed. Without a function to perform, she did not have a seat or a proper place to stand, but she tucked against a back wall and stayed out of everyone else's way as they brought the ship to life and powered on the engines. With as much ease as turning a car key and slipping it into drive, the ship was moving and blasting its way out the docking bay containment field in a short moment.

K'Shai watched the scenery change without a word.

She listened to the chatter between the females as they informed everyone of pertinent information about their progress, but her attention was mostly tuned out the massive viewing portal that comprised the entire front of the room, from the floor all the way up the front of the ship and along the roof until it ended in a pointed tip at the center of the domed room.

K'Shai looked up at the round ceiling and watched the stars above her head and then eyed the front view once again as familiar, amazing, and slighty nauseating sights, filled her eyes once again.

The ship sailed quietly, smoothly, and quickly past the empty void of space and K'Shai watched as the great grayish-white glowing orb of Earth's moon grew larger and larger as the ship approached it. Just beyond it, glowing blue and green in the background, Earth was lit up like a mighty beacon.

Far beyond the blue sphere, which looked oddly small compared to the sizeable mass of the moon floating nearby, K'Shai could see the yellow flames of the sun shooting up, illuminating the planet.

As the shuttle headed on towards its destination, she found herself watching the sun and the moon hovering on opposing sides of Earth, with the glowing halo emanating from both seeming almost to extend to one another as if they were trying to embrace one another with the entire planet caught between them. The view was specactular.

As she gaped in awestruck wonder at the beauty of the three orbs, she also glanced around to the Yautja who paid it at all no attention whatsoever. How it could possibly be that such incredible beauty was simply ignored, she could not imagine.

She doubted there would ever come a time in her life when the stars and the planets and the sights of space would be inconsequential to her.

She watched the grayish curve of the moon disappear past the hunt ship and slowly, the blue, white, and green Earth grew bigger and bigger in the front window of the ship. K'Shai could make out storm clouds over England and as the ship rounded the curve of the planet headed towards its destination, she watched sparse white clouds swirl around it as they headed towards the Eastern American seaboard.

As the ship was guided closer and closer towards its destination, K'Shai saw dark silhouettes of dozens of other ships all converged into a wide-open area of fields and parking lots, between demolished buildings.

She curiously went over to a computer console, somewhat certain she should not do so, but she drew no looks of detest or growled warnings from the four females in the room. In fact, none of them even bothered to watch her actions at all. It was perhaps the first time that something she did was not scrutinized with a commanding, sneering gaze.

K'Shai found herself even more apprehensive about using the computer at that. She was so sure she would be chased away with a firm barking growl, she felt tense, ready for it in anticipation, ready to square off and insist on her right to do what she wanted.

Halfway waiting for the sharp biting tone to ring out reprimanding her, she focused half her thoughts on the computer panel in the wall before her, and brought up a map of the area, and the locations of all the other ships, including the K'ojol, which was barely three hundred meters away at the edge of a field.

It was a landing party. The first landing party K'Shai had ever seen was to deposit hunters on the planet.

Since then, a whirlwind relationship over six months with R'chnt and nearly an entire pregnancy had passed, and now, the hunters had completed their task. K'Shai popped up another view of the area and noticed hundreds of Yautja working their way back to the ships waiting on them. As she widened the view, she saw dozens of landing parties full of ships and thousands of hunters approaching them.

The war was done. It was time to leave Earth.

K'Shai turned towards the viewing window once again as the ship rounded on its landing spot and thudded dully into the ground. The sun was shining outside and the bright blue skies, which looked so very different when seen from above, constrasted so dramatically to the bronzen hues of the many hunt ships converged throughout the area.

She stepped out of the ramp eagerly, pressing forward amongst the group of females deployed all around her and for the first time in more months than she had realized, her exposed toes touched the green grass as she stepped her sandaled feet onto the planet's surface.

Her face broke into an immediate smile as the long-lost scents of her own world hit her. Oddly, the scents in the air were as unfamiliar to her now as the scents of the atoll once were so many months ago when she first stepped out into it beside R'chnt.

It seemed that she had forgotten what Earth was like as she glanced around, squinting a bit at the almost overpowering bright sun while taking in the green grass below her feet, the blue skies over her head, and the tall amber grasses waving in the gentle breeze in the distance.

She realized that it been weeks, if not months, since she last really paid the planet any mind outside of the atoll, and it occurred to her that she had indeed come to disregard the planet and the stars and the sun and the moon, just as the Yautja paid them no mind either.

She glanced around the landing field as Neh'rti and S'ridi broke off from the group to confer with two elder males and two more females who all had their own ships already landed. K'Shai eyed her surroundings for R'chnt, but he was not there, and the K'ojol was not in sight.

She wandered around the landing zone but did not go far. For some reason, she could not quite figure out why, she felt _uncomfortable_ getting too far away from any of the Yautja.

She delicately cradled her belly with one arm and tugged a bit on the flowing silky leather garments she wore, pulling the deep split between the lapels a bit closer together as the wind gently twirled the split front of it around her legs.

She lightly brushed over the armor pieces that she wore over her thighs and her forearms; not awu'asa, but naru'asa; more of a formalized training armor that K'Shai had slowly earned. Thinking about the events that were about to come in the course of the next few minutes or hours, K'Shai returned into the hunt ship and prepared.

She returned to the field just as two more hunt ships landed and Neh'rti and the other females approached her, having finished their business.

"K'Shai, your mate will rejoin you shortly, come with us." Neh'rti said with an unusually magnamanous tone.

Neh'rti directed the group out of the landing zone and they headed towards the lingering buildings in the far distance. As she looked around the empty cities, K'Shai suddenly realized how out of place she felt; like a foreigner in a world she should have belonged in.

She glanced for a moment to her tanned skin, highlighted by deep bold black brands of alien artwork down her legs to her pinky toes and all the way up both sides, over her shoulders and lacing across her back like a shawl.

Her garments and her hair both adorned with jewels and bones that served of symbols of her place and status amongst a people that she once thought of as alien. As Neh'rti nodded her horned head towards K'Shai and silently directed her to take her place, it seemed even she was suddenly no longer regarding K'Shai as an alien, just part of the group.

The formality of what had transpired since leaving the mei'sa was high, and as K'Shai eyed the Clan Leader in silence, she lowered her head gracefully and respectfully. Somehow, being back on Earth just felt _wrong_ to K'Shai, and as she looked between the sea of hunt ships, the several dozen Yautja that held position there waiting on the return of troops, and the empty abandoned stretches of streets and fields all around her, she realized with a heavy feeling in her heart and belly, that her definition of _home_ had changed more than she had ever considered.

As K'Shai walked along with the group, feeling the infant within her stretch and wriggle, she considered that perhaps Neh'rti's apparent change in demeanor was out of recognition that the end was coming near. At least, the end of the Yautja war, which inevitably meant also the final time K'Shai may possibly see her home world. As she looked around the scenery she recognized the familiarity of it, though it had changed somewhat in appearance since the last fateful night she saw it.

She knew the group was headed directly to the city of New Haven, and as they continued on through vaguely familiar streets, K'Shai felt her body going a little numb with every step. She thought about the destructed cities she had seen the last time she was on Earth, and terrible images of smoke and fluorescent green blood and R'chnt's body fading from consciouness filled her head as sounds of gun fire and roaring and the terrible hissing of the hard meat queen whirred up in her waking thoughts.

As she walked, she had an odd sense of having once been on the very same streets, but yet they looked totally different. Piles of rubble sprawled out between grassy patches where buildings once stood and slowly, as buildings in the distance became clearer and clearer through a long stretch of quite purposely leveled off flat land, the sights around her became unfamiliar.

Demolished buildings had been repurposed into low walls that were covered in vines which were bursting with grapes. Other brick structures, standing chest height in long rows were repurposed supports for tomatoes, blueberry bushes, and strawberries patches. Squash, cucumber, other vegetables grew in neatly tended rows from massive elevated dirt beds that rested on long-emptied plots where buildings once stood.

The structures in the distance, K'Shai realized as she drew closer, were once office buildings, businesses, a firehouse, and police station. Now each had been renovated to clearly serve a new purpose in the city of New Haven.

The sounds of children laughing, a sound K'Shai had forgotten entirely, rang up through the streets from beyond the wall and open gate that guards surveyed the crop lands outside from. Slowly, the adults around the city came to a halt one by one in rows, all looking up at the alien entourage approaching.

People began flowing out for blocks as voices rang out calling everyone's attention. Though the Yautja females remained quiet, rigid and undisturbed by the excitement of the humans before them, K'Shai immediately felt tense, alarmed, and full of anxiety. The males that flanked the small female group growled apprehensively, but held their ground and kept their weapons sheathed.

K'Shai nervously moved amidst the group, certain that everyone could likely hear her heart pounding and smell her nervous dai'shui, including the now-gathering humans, for it was certainly drowning her thoughts and filling her head.

She shifted slightly between the Yautja bodies, silently drawing herself to a position nearer to the front. She felt her heart skip a few beats when no one rebuked her. She had changed position in the group, to nearly the front, and the females accepted her sudden change without argument or challenge.

First, dozens then dozens more, until finally hundreds of people filed into the broadway between the structures of the city, under banners strung up across the street that displayed the name of the city and large arrows pointing towards various parts of the city.

Down each adjacent street, banners were strung up from building to building all with names of people written on them; monuments to fallen loved ones, or a way for current residents to reconnect with long lost friends, K'Shai could not be sure. Then, once in the midst of the city, Neh'rti brought the Yautja group to a halt and K'Shai peered around from just behind her, between the elbows of more than a half dozen Yautja surrounding her and spied two familiar faces emerge awestruck from the crowd.

K'Shai dropped her eyes graciously as she slid out from between the females, a smile filling her face.

"Lewis! Carlos!" K'Shai said with a shocked and excited whisper.

Her smile broadened and she lifted her eyes, making direct contact as she stepped forward. Two females stepped out of the formation behind her, flanking her. They stayed out of arm's reach but broadcast their presence enough to make Lewis and Carlos both stop in their tracks and eye them. K'Shai extended her hands forward and greeted her friends with a firm grip on their shoulders; a Yautja greeting.

"Look at you!" Lewis said in an exasperated whisper as both of them scanned her.

"You look completely different. I wouldn't even recognize you," Carlos said.

K'Shai tipped her head curiously at them, and nodded silently.

"You are definitely different," Lewis confirmed. He paused for a moment and extended an arm behind him, directing a rather alarmed looking woman forward.

"My wife, Diana."

K'Shai smilled widely, and bowed her head respectfully. She was pleased to see that Lewis had found a mate. That made her feel almost relieved in an odd sort of way. Lewis was, and always would be, a kind and dear friend, and K'Shai was not oblivious to the fact that he had been disappointed by her involvement with R'chnt, though he adjusted well enough to it. To see him moving forward with his life, clearly settled into a new human way in the new city, and taking a mate, was comforting.

"Incredible," Carlos whispered again, watching K'Shai intently.

She eyed him with a thin smile as she unconsciously cradled her belly; a simple habit that she did nearly every moment she was awake.

"You truly are quite different. You know, you're something of a celebrity here." Carlos said.

"And by " _here"_ , he means, basically here on planet Earth." Lewis added with a chuckle that Carlos echoed.

K'Shai smiled but remained quiet.

"We've all heard so much about you." Diana confirmed. "You and… R'chnt, is it?"

K'Shai nodded, pressing her lips together in a smile.

"Where… where is he?" Carlos suddenly asked, eyes scanning the Yautja party. "Is he…" his questioning tone morbidly trailing off.

K'Shai smiled softly and gripped Carlos's hands tightly.

"Carlos," she said in a soft whisper. "What you did for him that day; will never be forgotten. I will always be grateful to you."

"Oh, Cassandra, did he…" Lewis started to clarify with a solemn tone.

K'Shai smiled graciously at him, pulling her posture tightly erect as she shook her head slowly. "He will be along soon. I am glad I could see you both again. I cannot stay long. This child will be here _soon._ Very soon."

Lewis, Carlos, and Diana offered K'Shai brief congratulations and a short bombardment of questions about her life and pregnancy which K'Shai, feeling a little overwhelmed suddenly did her best to answer.

It was like an odd turn around from many months earlier when she had been once overwhelmed by a similar barrage of questions about her unusual species from aliens. Now, as she did her best to answer the curious questions about her experiences and unusal nature of her pregnancy, she thought about the blurred line between exactly which species was the alien.

Suddenly, Kelly burst from the gathered crowd and ran to K'Shai with a leaping hug while Nancy and her mate, Matt looked on with gracious smiles. As K'Shai scanned the crowd again, she noticed more familiar faces appearing all to get a look at her and she nodded acknowledgements to them.

Just as her gaze met Russel's eyes for a moment, she saw his stare, and everyone else's around him, shift towards the entrance gates as a murmur rumbled up through the crowd.

As the two dozen hunters in the street shifted out of the way, K'Shai spotted R'chnt leading his hunting party, along with a dozen others she did not know. They brought with them on a hovering platform, a giant head of a _kainde amedha_ queen; a trophy and symbol of the end of the hunt.

K'Shai beamed radiantly at R'chnt as he strode towards her and clamped his hand over hers while she bowed a respectful greeting to him, resisting the urge to throw herself around him in a great embrace, much the same as Kelly just had her.

"Ki'cte bpi-de," R'chnt announced in his resounding voice to a stunned silent crowd.

K'Shai looked to Lewis and Carlos. "It is done."

She spoke louder than she realized, perhaps just exhaling the excitement that had been building in her. Her voice carried across the gathered crowd and a sudden booming rejoicing erupted.

The Yautja shifted their stances and eyed the celebrating aliens, notably disconcerted by the sudden outburst, but understanding of the reaction all the same. K'Shai was sure that there would be celebrations aboard the a'toll as the hunters finally left this world behind.

Many of the celebrating humans broke off to enjoy their newfound freedom in their own ways, while others remained still and continued surveying the aliens before them. When a man appeared from the crowd, a quiet slowly filled the air once again and K'Shai and R'chnt turned to see the man approaching, extending his arm to shake K'Shai's hand.

R'chnt growled in alarm and stepped forward, as did Neh'rti and the two females who had flanked K'Shai nearly the entire time, each growling out their own warnings over the male's attempted physical contact with K'Shai.

The man took the hint and lowered his arm, looking at the four aliens towering over him with wide eyes as Lewis slid closer to him, positioning himself between the man and the Yautja.

"President Atwater," he said firmly. "This is K'Shai and R'chnt."

"Thank you. Thank you both so much," the man said.

K'Shai knew this man was a leader, worthy of respect, and yet R'chnt remained apprehensive and guarded while the females pressed in close, warily eyeing the situation without trust, interest, or acceptance. The man continued on.

"Our world has already begun to change and rebuild, and now, we can move beyond the walls of New Haven."

K'Shai was not sure if the President was speaking to them or for the crowd instead, as he announced his words loudly, clearly trying to draw in attention of the spectators, just as much as R'chnt's previous opponent in the sparring arena tried to draw in hers.

"Thank you to the both of you. You have forever changed our history. I'd like to get a photo with you both, if I could. This day will always be rememberd. August the Seventeeth will be forever known as the day the world changed."

K'Shai remained just as motionless as the Yautja around her and when the man stopped his speech, an uncomfortable silence filled the air. She reached into a satchel on her hip and pulled out two necklaces.

The dangling pendants, which looked like gold-embossed bones with a glowing blue crystalline center, served a purpose that K'Shai hoped someday she would put to use. Ignoring the man all together with disinterest, K'Shai looked to Lewis and Carlos.

"We must go," she said to Lewis, warily eyeing the leader of the humans that had tried to touch her as she shifted her hands forward and allowed Lewis and Carlos to each take the dangling pendants from her.

"There will be a celebration tonight," the President said. "Won't you both… you and… your people… stay for that? It would be an honor. I would like to learn about you."

K'Shai eyed Lewis again and repeated her words, not certain if she was unclear the first time.

As R'chnt, K'Shai, and the rest of the Yautja turned to leave, K'Shai gestured for Lewis and Carlos to follow. They followed her out of the city, curiously questioning her as they shadowed the Yautja group until they reached a ship with a ramp down, and W'rsa waiting tall, spear in hand, keeping guard.

"This is R'chnt's ship," K'Shai said as she stopped and turned to the group of humans following her.

Some of the Yautja disappeared inside the ship up the ramp, while others headed away from that hunt ship towards their own. Neh'rti paused and looked to K'Shai with a dismissive gaze, silently acknowledging that K'Shai would not be riding back to the atoll with the females and turned to walk away.

R'chnt stood next to K'Shai, watching the humans survey him, her, and the ship behind them one last time.

"Will we see you again, Cassy?" Lewis asked softly.

K'Shai produced a thin smile, and a subtle nod as her body remained straight and proud.

"I will return one day. I will find you."

"Good luck to you… K'Shai," Lewis said as he and Carlos both clasped their hands to hers in a departing gesture.

"To you, too. You have a planet to rebuild. I only have to get used to a new one." She smiled, and turned, walking with R'chnt up the ramp and into the Kehrite.

She passed the trophy cases as the doors closed down over them and barely glanced to the skull of a Yautja with a broken lower right mandible mounted in one of them as she walked through the kehrite and towards the control room, passing by several dozen youngbloods who had all hitched a ride back to the atoll aboard R'chnt's ship.

She stopped in the center of the control room as R'chnt moved around her and she let her hand whisk down his arm and across his abdomen, over the scarred injury on his abdomen.

"We will be home soon, my K'Shai." He said in a quiet tone as he stroked her face, similing softly at her.

She tipped her head into his palm, nodding and watched the ship take off from the planet's surface, suddenly feeling more content than she could recall feeling before. She watched the blue orb of the planet slide behind the ship as they zoomed away towards the atoll far in the distance, and she turned to head back to R'chnt's chambers to await the rest of the ride.

She spun slowly on her heels and suddenly bellowed a pained howl, grabbing her abdomen tightly as the four hunters in the control room all looked at her in alarm. R'chnt jumped from his chair at her sudden outburst and faced her.

"It's time!"


	16. Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

" _It's time!?_ " He thought with a start as he watched K'Shai grapple her abdomen and double over, making her way out of the control room with his help while grunting and moaning in distress.

He could see her body temperature rising and K'Shai howled in pained agony as her body released fluids uncontrollably. R'chnt supported her as she lurched into him and stopped moving. He grabbed her up and carried her the rest of the way into his chambers as alarmed and curious heads all craned towards them.

"K'Shai," he said in a concerned bellow as he made his way with her in his arms into the sleeping room of his chambers and laid her on the bed, watching her groan in protest against the painful but natural process in her body.

She strained again, more powerfully than all the rest.

"It is not normal for a child to be born so quickly." He said quickly.

"Maybe not for Yautja, but this has been a longer pregnancy that normal for humans. It's time. Oh, this is _really_ uncomfortable…" she said with a trailing wail in her voice.

"We are almost to the atoll. You must wait until we arrive. The females wi…"

Interrupting him with pained laughter in between groans and howls as her contractions intensified, K'Shai bellowed to him.

"It doesn't work that way! This baby is coming - _NOW!_ " She said grittily through clenched teeth as she huffed another deep breath.

In the last nine months aboard the clan ship, K'Shai had only witnessed two births, and even those were from a distance.

It was not typical or even appropriate for pregnant females to leave the homeworld, or even the mei'sa. The only females in child on the atoll were a handful of whom of such rank or position in the Clan that they simply had no choice but to leave their world to handle affairs of the Earth war.

While the other females were still gestating their offspring over what would be the equivalent of five years of Earth's time, two of them had come to full term while on the atoll.

The mei'sa was a home for all females and their offspring. It was equipped with every luxury any female could want or need, but from all that K'Shai had been told and learned, the mei'sa on the a'toll was nothing in comparison to the one in the Clan on the homeworld.

The females that had given birth both noted how it was not ideal to do so under such conditions. K'Shai could not imagine what was so different between the homeworld and the atoll mei'sa, and as her body shot with pain unlike anything she experienced before, she could have cared less where she gave birth, just so long as the offspring would finally come out.

"K'Shai… I…" R'chnt started, stammering for the first time since she had ever known him. His voice sounded rattled and outright perplexed.

"I do not know what to do. You must wait. This is not for males…"

She squeezed his hand tightly, maybe too tight, but he did not seem to mind that she was likely cutting off his circulation as she dug her fingernails into his tough skin as she huffed and focused on her own breathing, certain that it was hotter in his chambers than it had ever been before as she realized she was sweating profusely.

"R'chnt," she said through a gritty whisper. "Just… _catch_."

Instincts she never knew she possessed kicked in, and as the painful contractions pressed on, she removed her belt, releasing her leathery loin cloth that draped almost like a braided and shaped kilt under her overgarment and howled as she felt an uncontrollable need to push.

She slammed her head back into the fur-packed pillows and groaned again, gritting her teeth and pushing again and again as R'chnt's attention focused between her legs. He did as he was told and, somewhat notably nervously, cupped his palms, ready and waiting as the head of his offspring emerged from K'Shai.

As she wailed one more time and bore down, the first hybrid offspring in Yautja history slipped in a bloody and gooey mess into his palms and immediately trilled as the sac around it pulled free. K'Shai relaxed, flattening out against the bed, taking in a deep, relieved sigh as the pain slowly passed, along with a large glob of bloody tissue from her womb and she stilled into quietness.

K'Shai took another deep breath and opened her eyes as her body settled. She could hear the baby trilling quietly and she eyed R'chnt with a thin smile through pressed lips.

He held his own offspring for the first time in his entire life. Perhaps, it was the first time in _any_ Yautja male's life that he was present for the birth of his offspring, she did not know for sure, but assumed that it was.

In a still and silent, nearly totally quiet moment in his chambers, if not for the quiet clicking sound of the baby, K'Shai watched the might gray-haired elder stare in stunned silent wonder at the tiny little thing he carefully supported in one hand.

The baby was so small she was almost not even visible cupped in just one of R'chnt's massive palms as he supported her from head to toes which barely reached passed his wrist. K'Shai could just see two very tiny little feet, with miniscule black nub-claws kicking back and forth slowly as the child moved in her father's powerfully still grip.

R'chnt's tusks were clenched tightly; a look K'Shai recognized one as one of subdued submission, certainly something that one would never expect such a highly respected and honored elder would normally project.

He surveyed his tiny infant daughter, holding so still he looked statuesque, almost as if he was afraid to move as if he might damage the offspring. K'Shai focused her gaze and pressed her lips together into a brimming smile, holding her breath and making no sound as she watched a fascinated new father watch his child watching her father back.

K'Shai did not want to interrupt them, but as the child grew somewhat restless, trilling away once again in a tiny little voice, she whispered softly.

"R'chnt," K'Shai said as she lightly touched his armor-clad forearm. He shifted his head and shoulders slightly towards her, little beads in his heavily adorned tresses clicking together as he did so. He clearly began breathing again, and ticked his tusks together quickly.

"She needs to eat." K'Shai whispered, shifting so she could take her child into position. "You can hold her again, when she's done."

R'chnt gazed at her, back to the child, and again to K'Shai as he turned to offer the baby to her mother. Just at the very same moment, K'Shai only barely noticed the door to the chambers open and Neh'rti and three females step through.

K'Shai had hardly paid attention to the feel of the K'ojol landing back inside the atoll; she had other things on her mind. But judging by the hurried, and somewhat perturbed, appearance of the females into R'chnt's chambers, clearly word had quickly spread that she had gone into labor.

Normally, females would not enter into the chambers of a male, especially a highly honored male, unless for mating. It was more than unusual for them to do so, but the circumstances were extenuating and R'chnt, far from displeased that his doorway had suddenly filled with elite females, moved aside as Neh'rti barked aloud upon entering the room.

"Why is that offspring not with its mother?" She growled, interrupting the tender moment with her typically scoffing demeanor.

R'chnt slid the offspring to K'Shai and stepped aside, quickly, but perhaps not as readily as the females might have preferred, K'Shai noticed as they glared at him as though he had no business being anywhere near them.

Though he stayed near K'Shai, he bowed his head respectfully and stood a little awkwardly, no doubt uncomfortable with the peculiar situation he had been put in and caught somewhere between trying to be respectful of Neh'rti and the others, obedient to the Yautja Way, and still managing to display a protectiveness over K'Shai and his newborn daughter.

K'Shai said nothing and only glared at Neh'rti for a moment before the elder female healer leaned over and drew her attention away.

"This infant has been born abnormally early. It is too small and weak to survive." She said with certainty as she reached for the child and K'Shai withdrew slightly.

"Well, look at the size of the _mother_." One of the other females said. "Of course it's small."

Neh'rti gazed on, her tusks closed tightly, with one raised just slightly; a look of dismissive contemplation, K'Shai knew. It seemed Neh'rti always had that kind of look around her. S'ridi stood amongst the females and surveyed the scene in silence, with R'chnt standing just within arm's reach of K'Shai's shoulder as mother cradled child on the bloodied bed sheets.

The elder healer reached to pull the child away from K'Shai right as she had latched on and started suckling her first gulps of milk.

K'Shai found the sensation unusual, uncomfortable, and slightly painful, as the baby's fleshy little toothless mouth took tight hold and formed a vacuum. The inner skin folds of her mouth were perfectly sized and shaped for suckling; it was no wonder Yautjan infants were usually referred to as "sucklings".

A'ryin'di latched on quickly once K'Shai pressed her against her chest; the baby naturally and instinctively seeking out her first meal. She didn't feel small or weak. She was similarly sized to any human newborn, and she felt as though she weighed twice as much.

As K'Shai held her infant for the first time, she understood why she always felt a little sour-stomached through most of the latter half of the pregnancy.

"She's fine. Leave her alone," K'Shai hissed guardedly, pulling her child and herself away from the healer.

"K'Shai! I just want to examine her." The female healer growled.

"You both need to return to the mei'sa immediately. It is completely unacceptable for a lone female and offspring to be on a ship full of males. _Especially so many_ young males." Neh'rti chastised immediately as K'Shai withdrew again.

"I'm fine. We're fine right here. This is where we both need to be." K'Shai combatted back, with an annoyed tone in her voice that did not sound too unlike a Yautja growl.

"The infant…" the healer growled agitated.

K'Shai, tired, sore, and in no mood for anything other than peace and quiet, wanting to be alone with R'chnt and their child, snapped.

"She's a baby. She'll be fine out of the mei'sa for a few days. She is with her parents. She's fine. I'm fine. I'm _not_ going to the mei'sa right now. We're staying right here. Enough! No more. "

R'chnt braced rigidly not exactly sure of how to respond to the showdown between the females. It was, as Neh'rti said, completely out of the ordinary for a female to even _want_ to bear her offspring away from the mei'sa. Though K'Shai had remained adamant about raising the baby alongside him, R'chnt had assumed since she was adjusting so well to Yautja life and life in the mei'sa, she would naturally transition to raising his offspring according to the proper way.

Still, he also wanted her to remain in his chambers with him, and once back at the homeworld, he thought about having his mate by his side, always ready to pleasure him and wanting his company.

It was an enticing thought, and having seen and held his child, something males neither were privileged enough to do, nor cared about in the first place, he did _want_ to be a part of the child's life, as K'Shai had deemed so important.

Perhaps, he considered silently, he was wrong in thinking K'Shai would shun her human ways as easily as he may have thought.

Neh'rti growled apprehensively, but made no aggressive movements, clearly recognizing a mother's protectiveness and respecting it. It was, perhaps, one of the first times R'chnt had seen K'Shai behave so aggressively, though he had heard she was capable of acting quite fierce, earning and securing her reputation as a tough female, not all that different than the Yautja themselves.

The effect of her aggressive display was immediate and the females backed down. At Neh'rti's gesture, they retreated and headed out of the chambers, not wanting to interfere with the natural bond between mother and child that was already developing.

"K'Shai," Neh'rti grumbled before she stepped away, "you must accept your place as a mother within this Clan."

Neh'rti glared towards R'chnt with a definite look of exasperation at the situation; he bowed his head graciously and she turned without a further word.

Once they left, K'Shai settled her aggravation and R'chnt slowly watched her body temperature return to normal levels before he approached the bed warily and sat lightly on the edge of it near his mate and the still-suckling child.

He sat rigid, alert, and quiet, not wanting to interrupt the pair or aggravate K'Shai who had finally settled enough to let her defensive posture ease up.

It was still and peaceful inside his chambers. R'chnt sat on the edge of the bed surveying both of them as the child suckled. K'Shai remained silent, tuning out the distracting noises coming from the corridor and eyed up every detail of the little creation that she cradled.

The infant gave away no hints of her human heritage at all. If not for the alien mother cradling her to her breast, A'ryin'di would not appear any different than any other Yautja child K'Shai had seen.

The baby's coloring was a darkened red and mottled with hues of yellows and orange and heavily dappled with black coloration. Only the peachy white skin over her belly and inside her legs and arms looking anything close to a human shade, even if just barely.

She had tiny cranial ridges protruding from the sides and back of her head where eventually tresses would grow through from the large porous indentations under them. Two barely noticeable ridges over the crest of her head from the brow to the back of her skull hinted at her gender; ridges that males lacked.

Her deep amber eyes appeared only just slightly different than a typical Yautja's upon closer scrutiny. R'chnt's eyes were bright gold rings atop black orbs. A'ryin'di's eyes were of such a dark amber color, they almost looked brown, with a slight tint of green; a reflection of K'Shai's own eyes.

The baby had everything else in place that any baby would have. She had two small wrinkly little arms, with tiny little hands capped in five small fingers. Her two puffy little legs, which she twitched as she shuffled for comfort while suckling bore petite feet with perfectly shaped, tiny toes.

Her digits were all capped in little nubs of black claws, round and soft, and unable to grip or damage the delicate skin of her mother. Her mouth was toothless, and she lacked any tusks on her mandibles, which were just little pads of soft skin connected by a thin fleshy cheek. She flared her mouth parts and wriggled the skin over her upper gum as she nursed a large first meal.

Though the females considered the infant small, too small to survive as they put it, A'ryn'di looked exactly about what size any typical human child would look.

Not small, not big; just perfectly sized and healthy, round and portly like any healthily gestated baby should look. While R'chnt sat, nearly motionless, watching his mate and daughter with a certain fascination, K'Shai soon found herself humming to the baby, who eventually finished her meal.

Though she did not know the exact words of the song, it was a Yautja song that she had heard; one of many she liked the tune of. It had a certain lullaby quality to it and as she hummed to the offspring, she slid off the bed and swayed around the bed chambers and into the bath house to tend to the baby.

R'chnt followed, watching K'Shai from the doorway as she cleaned the baby's soiled wrap and rewrap her in fresh linens the way she had learned from the females.

"I'll get an 'aseigan to come clean the bed," K'Shai whispered quietly as she emerged from the bath house with the baby now drifting off to sleep, warm and full, peaceful and content in her mother's arms.

"No." R'chnt said. "I will do it."

K'Shai looked to him widely, a little surprised. Cleaning was certainly not a task for an honored elder such as him, but he confirmed it again at her questioning.

"I do not want anyone in here."

She nodded in understanding appreciation and R'chnt headed towards the door as K'Shai sat on one of the large chairs in the middle room and curled her knees up, nestling the baby completely against her.

"What's going on out there? I hear a lot of commotion." K'Shai asked as the door to the chambers slid open and K'Shai finally tuned in to the sounds she had been ignoring in the background the entire time.

"Taking on passengers for the return home."

"Not enough room on the atoll?" K'Shai asked in a sarcastic tone.

The atoll was _massive_ , and could easily hold over ten thousand hunters at any one time. During the final two weeks, as the ship did begin to take on more passengers than she was accustomed to, it did make her feel uncomfortably crowded, but there was still so much room in the vessel she could not imagine it ever being so full that the Leaders with their own hunt ships would be obliged to take hunters back to the planet.

She had expected R'chnt to agree on the point, but he stood tall in the doorway and glanced from the hallway, packing with young bloods out of K'Shai's sight, and back to her.

"Yes." He said simply, and K'Shai tipped her head quizzically at him.

She remained curled up on the chair cradling the child as he strode off, clearing a path in the sea of youngblooded passengers by emitting a deep growl.

He found W'rsa and two others of his hunting pack standing in the middle of the kehrite as young bloods filed in. They looked a bit exasperated as they turned to him, surveying him with a definite curious gaze.

The young blooded hunters continued to make their way onto the ship, finding spots to sit along the walls or in the middle of the kehrite. 'Aseigan hurried around servicing them as they needed, taking armor to be repaired, or brining food and drink as commanded.

The war was done and what was left of the hunters of the Kaunte Dar'een Clan made their way back onto the atoll, with overflow getting rides back on all the hunt ships that were available.

R'chnt looked around his kehrite and watched the youngsters pack in. They were high on spirits and ready to celebrate the end of a trying situation. He had specifically left the trophy case doors open so everyone who entered would see the collection of bones accrued over the last three centuries, and he eyed one in particular, noticing several young hunters gazing at it as they chittered to one another about the alien who had killed it.

R'chnt clicked his tusks proudly, watching the youngsters share their version of what they heard about K'Shai's kill of a Yautja.

The story had been inflamed beyond what had really happened, but that was expected. R'chnt nearly never talked about his own hunts, except only to K'Shai in private. He told them as they happened, exactly as he had stalked and killed, with no embellishments.

Usually, the over-inflation of a story happened in retelling after retelling, and from what R'chnt overheard amidst the rumbling chatter in his kehrite, the newest incarnation of the fight K'Shai had with the young Leader of the M'jnor clan seemed to line up with her reputation as a fearsome, though unusual, creature.

He made his way through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd in the kehrite only to find another one in the docking bay. He found one 'aseigan standing idly nearby and ordered him to bring him directly fresh bedding.

The 'aseigan bolted off promptly, doing his best to dance through the crowded docking bay without accidentally getting too near any of the hunters who were all shuffling into the waiting hunt ships.

R'chnt worked his way to a cantina, found the hunters he had wished to have brief conversation with, and then turned to leave, spotting Neh'rti as he did so. She approached him with a courteous bow, which he returned deeply.

"R'chnt, your K'Shai is quite the difficult creature."

"She is strong, Neh'rti." He said with certainty.

"Where is she now?"

"Resting with the suckling in my chambers. She wishes to remain by my side. She has always wished that." R'chnt said simply, trying to press the point in a non-confrontational way.

"Her place is in the mei'sa. She _must_ decide if she is to live as a Yautja or a human. She cannot be both, and if she chooses to be human, her place is not here."

R'chnt restrained a perturbed growl. "She has already proven her place is here. She has proven she can live as a Yautja, has she not?"

Neh'rti's lack of a response was about as close to confirmation of his point that he was going to get, so he continued on.

"K'Shai is different, she believes in different ways and she has been teaching me those ways."

"And you accept those ways?" Neh'rti asked with alarmed surprise.

R'chnt nodded quietly, without hesistation.

"I accept the challenges she has asked of me; to provide her and the child with protection and support. She has adjusted on the atoll to life in the mei'sa, but now she must re-adjust to the homeworld, and I will help her with that as much as I can."

"She still looks to you for guidance as more than just her Leader, R'chnt. You must make her understand that both she and the infant will be best in the mei'sa." Neh'rti barked, unimpressed.

"In her world, Leader, females raise their offspring together with the sire. Humans mate for life, and K'Shai has chosen me as her life's mate. She feels it is best for the child, and her, not to be apart from me. That is why she resists being in the mei'sa."

"She is free to mate with you as she pleases," Neh'rti countered dismissively. "She continues to resist our ways, but the offspring must be raised as a Yautja."

R'chnt bowed his head deeply. "Of course, Neh'rti."

The Clan Leader, agitated, ticked her mandibles together in annoyance.

"If she wishes to continue this nonsense, R'chnt, the child could be in danger. So could she. She can be bred again and again. Mating season will be beginning soon, and her appeal could put her in serious danger. It may spur challengers to kill A'ryin'di. It will spur plenty of challenges to you."

"They are mine to protect." R'chnt responded simply, pulling his strong shoulders back slightly, stretching his frame and flaring his mandibles notably at the mere thought of such a situation. "I accept the challenge."

"You have yet to mark her, R'chnt. I suggest you do so, quickly… and _publicly_. I do not understand why you delay. Are you certain you wish to claim her? Or are you considering changing your intentions?"

R'chnt tapped his upper and lower mandibles together for a moment before bowing his head.

"She will be marked."

Neh'rti seemed appeased for the moment by his unwavering position on the matter and departed. R'chnt turned to notice his brother standing nearby, making no attempt to hide the fact that he had tuned into the whole conversation.

He walked back to the K'ojol with his brother who discussed his opinions on the matter whether he wanted to hear them or not, before retrieving the bedding from a waiting 'aseigan at the base of the ship. He departed from his brother and headed up the ramp as the door shut behind him. In a few moments, after his command, the vessel was taking off, clearing out from the docking bay to follow the atoll back to the homeworld and deposit its overload of passengers.

The flight would be several rotations long, but it would provide K'Shai and R'chnt some much needed quite time in their chambers, he thought.

As he approached his chambers, the first thing he noticed in the air, besides the musk of all the young hunters chittering away in their own little groups or sleeping on the floor, was an unfamiliar yet still Yautja scent of blood and urine and h'dui'se of a human and her hybrid offspring lingering faintly.

Judging by the conversations he overheard, which quickly silenced as he walked passed the young bloods, each one of them was taking their analyzing the scents and formulating their own opinions of the unusual situation as they watched an Honored Elder Leader carry belonging to his quarters.

When he opened the chambers door with bedding tucked under one arm and a tray of food in one hand, growling lowly from the back of his throat to warn away anyone who might dare try to crane their necks too much to spy in on his mate and child or comment about the almost comical sight of him carrying supplies, he found K'Shai sleeping soundly in a chair with the child cradled in her arms.

The scent of K'Shai and the offspring erupted into the corridor upon opening the door, causing a hush as curious eyes followed his backside into the chambers, but none dared to even shuffle a toe out of place for fear of getting too close. R'chnt ticked his upper mandibles with satisfaction.

Of course they were curious; that was simply undeniable.

They would judge and make their opinions of the entire situation known to their friends; that was without question. The more daring of the young bloods, R'chnt thought, may even go so far as to insult him, his mate, or the offspring she cradled, when they were absolutely sure he was out of ear shot.

They might have found reason to snigger a muffled chortle at the sight of him carrying bedding and food instead of walking down the corridor with a wary 'aseigan behind him, but he had ultimately conveyed a point, and it was a point well received, judging by the reactions in the hallway and by the elites of the Clan; the other elders, and Neh'rti herself.

K'Shai was his, and he would do what was needed for her and his hybrid child.

Neh'rti pressed upon him one more matter that he had been delaying in. It was a matter that he and K'Shai had discussed lightly, and it drew in great curiosity from youngbloods and other elders alike for why R'chnt had not tended to the matter upon the first mating, as typical for a Yautja. Nothing with K'Shai had been typical anything as far as he was concerned.

He thought about it for a moment as he lightly crossed the floor of his chambers, approaching his sleeping mate and offspring. Neh'rti questioned if he still wanted to claim K'Shai as a mate, and he knew others would as well.

Perhaps they would think he had simply lost his mind, harboring a female alien and a hybrid child tucked away in his quarters. He considered for a moment that he would likely think the very same thing of any Yautja who had done exactly as he had. Had he not experienced it, grown to know K'Shai, and come to desire her, he probably would have thought he had gone insane for even considering any of it.

As it was, K'Shai had impressed upon him her own alien ways and they were markedly different than the Yautja customs he was born and raised to know. He had learned to consider her ways as he progressed with her, and he was graciously humbled to think of all that had transpired thus far.

Still, they were returning to Yaut, and K'Shai, he knew, would face challenges as she adjusted to life on another world. He doubted that she would find the environment too different, and considered proudly the fact that she had adapted so well to life aboard the atoll with relative ease.

K'Shai was strong; a worthy choice for an alien mate if ever there was one. He would mark her in his own way at his own time, and that time was drawing near.

K'Shai, he thought as he watched her sleep, had adjusted well, had made her mark in the clan, and he would soon make his mark upon her in a way that would ensure no Yautja would question his dominance of her, protection of her, possession of her, and commitment to his offspring.

He only stirred her awake after the bed was ready with new sheets, gently stroking her face with two long, trailing fingers, feeling her soft and delicate warm skin as he clicked quietly.

The infant stirred as her mother shifted upright and smiled at him, then back to the child, wrapping her arms tightly around the baby and lowering her lips to the child's head. R'chnt slid onto his haunches on the floor and watched K'Shai cradle the baby, before she turned to him and slid the child into his arms.

"Hold her please. I have to pee!"

She laughed lightly and deposited the child into his grip, kissing him gently along his cheek as she allowed her hands to slide down his powerful biceps, feeling his warm and textured alien skin.

R'chnt watched the infant in his arms as K'Shai disappeared out of the room. He cradled her, quietly sitting in the middle of the circular room as the stars zoomed past outside the massive viewing windows surrounded by trophies and watched the child gaze back up at him as his long fingers stroked her delicate skin.

The offspring barely covered half the length of his bare forearm; small and fragile, and gazing up at her sire as she flexed her fleshy, toothless mandibles and clicked softly. Her tiny fingers extended towards R'chnt's tresses and beads as she kicked her small legs, shifted her body, settled, and did it all over again.

He barely noticed that K'Shai had returned after some time and was hovering just at the edge of the steps with a smile on her face. She was clean, fully showered, and looked stronger and more rested after the strain of childbirth.

She approached the pair softly after he noticed her and knelt down on the ground next to them before sitting beside R'chnt, who continued to cradle the offspring while K'Shai watched with a certain wondering awe in her own gaze.

"Males really … just… _don't_ … do anything with their babies?" She asked in a tone somewhere between a question and a statement.

"No." R'chnt answered simply, never lifting his eyes from his child who had nuzzled against him and began shutting her eyes, clearly relishing the heat of his body much the same way K'Shai would.

"I am no father, K'Shai. I do not know what is expected of this… _challenge_."

K'Shai rested her hand upon his shoulder and lightly squeezed his powerful muscles and thick skin.

"Well, you look like you're doing just fine so far." She whispered quietly as the baby drifted back to restfulness and she kissed his cheek.

"Besides," she added. "I don't know how to be a mother, either. So we'll just work it out together."

He looked at her widely. "You are female."

K'Shai stifled a chuckle.

"That doesn't mean I know how to be a mother."

"The females in the mei'sa…" R'chnt began.

K'Shai stopped him mid sentence. "Do things very differently than humans. I don't think I can…."

"K'Shai," he cut in. "You must. You have already learned Yautja ways. Soon, we will be home. I know it will be different for you, but you will adapt there as well as you have on the atoll."

Not agreeing with his view, but trying to understand it, K'Shai let the matter drop by diverting her attention to the care of the baby.

As the time slowly passed, such a tactic seemed to work any time R'chnt brought up anything about the mei'sa, and especially anything to do with how well she had adjusted to Yautja life already. She pondered how it was that R'chnt had an absolutely convinced view that she had adapted well and settled in to Yautja life when she felt anything but adapted and settled, and still had a fleeting suspicion that Neh'rti likely would kill her and her new baby.

She hoped she could live up to the ideal that R'chnt seemed to believe she had already achieved.

She did not want to see the innocent and fragile little creature in her arms treated brutally in the Yautja form of "education" she had come to learn. She had a natural, instinctual drive to offer the child doting affection and protection while both parents nurtured her and watched her grow into something that would outshine both of them.

Over the course of the rotations while the ship sailed silently through the stars, K'Shai and R'chnt both began to figure out how to tackle being parents. K'Shai rarely put A'ryn'di down, though when she did need a break from the infant, R'chnt readily held her and watched over both of them. She knew from her months aboard the atoll learning the Yautja ways, that females were highly attentive, especially to their sucklings, and as she cradled her own suckling, she learned why very quickly.

A'ryin'di constantly shifted between brief intervals of rest with progressively longer intervals of feeding, and in between, she was either in need of cleaning or general attention.

She would become extremely restless when she was put into the bassinette of silky leathers that served as a cradle near her parent's bed, and slipped into purring sleep the best only when she was being held by her mother or father.

True to the bright green blood running in her veins, A'ryin'di savored heat and warmth and became equally as settled as her parents in the soaking pool's heated waters.

R'chnt, for the most part was busy with the excess flood of hunters aboard his ship, and while he made time to check in on his mate and child, most of the hours of each rotation kept him elsewhere. K'Shai sat quietly in the oversized chair which she had turned to face the windows in his chambers, and had made star gazing just as much a part of her daily routine as nursing her baby and sleeping.

She did not leave the chambers, but she paid close attention to the commotion beyond their doors, especially when R'chnt entered and the doors were open for the briefest of moments.

The sounds of weapons banging against each other, rumbling howls of entertained young bloods, and almost endless chatter echoed through the corridors non-stop. At first, K'Shai found it annoying difficult to sleep with the rumbling sounds, but when R'chnt offered to warn all the Yautja to keep silent or risk his wrath, she stopped complaining and soon enough she was able to tune out the echoing noises.

A'ryin'di did not seem to mind the constant noise; her sleep needs were never interrupted. K'Shai had learned very quickly that the Yautja offspring had one major difference over human babies.

Yautja babies did not cry. A'ryin'di certainly would get restless and discontent, and she would make her situation known with throaty clicks, chittering, and poorly-formed growls, accentuated by flailing hands and feet and some high-pitched calls, but actual crying as humans knew, was not even a sound a Yautja could produce.

A'ryin'di did not need to wake her mother up with cries of unrest anyway, because the periodic rise in decibels of the crowded Yautja in the hallways of the ship did it for her.

As K'Shai was aroused once again from a brief round of sleep by the momentary raise in howling voices accompanied by the unmistakable metal on metal clatter of one Yautja disarming another and sending him and his weapon skidding across the kehrite floor, she glanced around R'chnt's chambers.

He was absent. A'ryin'di was still sound asleep, undisturbed by her mother shifting positions or the sounds echoing through the ship. K'Shai could not help but to think, _don't they ever get tired_?

Even the mei'sa, with rowdy and energetic toddlers, was quieter for a few hours out of each rotation than the K'ojol had been at all in the last several days.

Of course, she knew the answer was no.

Despite the sleeping bundle of spots and claws in her arms, Yautja required very little sleep in comparison to humans.

For days, the K'ojol had been experiencing non-stop action from the overcrowded hunters piled into it, but there was a certain energy level that seemed to permeate the ship suddenly, and as K'Shai focused her gaze on the windows before her, she knew why.

She gaped her mouth and the corners of her lips began to draw back into an anticipatory smile as her eyes locked onto a glowing orb in the distance.

She noticed that the ship had slowed down and the white blaze far off in the distance was growing ever larger as the ship made its approach. When the vessel turned slightly, the windows of R'chnt's chambers ended up on the wrong side of the ship and her view was lost. As A'ryin'di stirred, K'Shai tended to her needs and then, finally, for the first time since they had left the atoll, she tiptoed her way to the chamber doors and opened them.

Immediately, dozens of curious heads turned her way. Though there were no young hunters immediately near R'chnt's chambers door, no doubt out of fear of even appearing like they were trying to get too close, the hallway on both sides was well packed with about twenty hunters, standing or sitting, sleeping or talking, in the curving corridor headed towards the kehrite entrance and the other way, which curved towards the control room.

Whatever conversations or activities the young bloods were doing all screeched to a sudden and disconcerting halt when K'Shai and her offspring appeared in the corridor.

She could feel her heart pulse nervously and the uncomfortable silence spoke volumes about the young bloods' uncertainty as well. K'Shai glanced to her left then to the right and left again, surveying all the hunters who craned their necks to see her. She noticed a few more heads pop out from the door-less kehrite entryway as more and more hunters packed like sardines into the ship became aware that she was out.

Most of them, she knew beyond a doubt, were seeing her for the first time; catching a glimpse of the alien that had taken up residence with the Yautja.

She could not help but wonder, as she started slowly walking to the right, towards the front of the ship, if only R'chnt's ship was so overpacked with stragglers looking for a ride home because they all wanted to say they rode back on his ship and saw the human.

R'chnt had mentioned that the atoll was simply so overfull of hunters there was just not enough room for anyone else, and as she looked around the packed hallways in the K'ojol now, she found it hard to believe that he had carried double this number to Earth; it just seemed like there was no way that many Yautja could even fit on the ship.

She headed down the corridor, slowly gaining more confidence as the hunters around her stopped, gawked and backed into the walls to allow her to pass while they watched her and the offspring with silenced wonder.

As she stepped on, K'Shai looked about at the young bloods and noticed something about them as well. They were all very _young_ indeed.

She felt herself clinging tightly to the baby in her arms and suddenly realized that she had become so familiar with the Yautja life cycle that she could easily tell just how young the children piled in the hallways really were.

Many of them had been born around the same time the automobile was even invented on Earth and yet they appeared to K'Shai to be even younger than she was.

Even the shortest of them still had a solid six inches on her in height. Some of them were clearly genetically blessed with peculiar height for their age and were absolutely massive; the superiors of their own groups, K'Shai assumed.

Any one of them at all could make any human think of them as fully grown, blood thirsty and savagely aggressive monsters that felt neither fear nor pain nor fatigue; all the things she had heard all the humans call the Yautja as the two species merged together for the first, though short-lived, time.

But as she looked around and considered the baby she cradled, K'Shai could only see children staring back at her through burning gold and yellow inexperienced and curious eyes.

Many of them stood stock still because they simply had no idea what to do in her presence, or how to react to her, or what to think.

She considered the probability that some of the children before her had been shipped off to fight a war they had nothing to do with, because they had reached an appropriate age.

They had been recruited, in a sense, by obligation to the honor of their species. It was also possible some of them had not even seen a living human being, despite spending time on Earth.

K'Shai found herself pausing mid-corridor just to have another look at the youngsters, who seemed eager to eye her just as much as she watched them; both silently familiarizing themselves with the other.

She realized that the implications of the Earth War extended far beyond anything she had once realized. It had not just destroyed Earth. As with any war she knew of, the youth were sent out to fight for the greater cause, with only the Yautja way of honor and pride to fuel them.

Her mind furiously considered the fact that her small and innocent child she pressed against her breast now could someday be called on to fight to the death, without remorse, on an alien world for a cause she knew nothing about. The thought alarmed her.

She knew that the Yautja were a proud race. They were a people who took a decidedly arrogant, heavily prideful stance on the fact that they were Yautja; superior to all, and willing to fight to the death to prove it, or face honorable defeat.

The youngsters she saw were indeed proud. Some were heavily injured, but their bore their injuries well. They were not traumatized of spirit, or worn and defeated looking. Like any Yautja, they were boastful, exuberant, and alarmingly indifferent to how close to death they all had likely come.

K'Shai soon pulled herself back into focus and headed towards the control room, where she drew in the attention of the four hunters in the room. R'chnt stood and readily approached her as if to cover her, shielding her from the others and displaying his protectiveness over her in a silent warning.

For a moment he seemed alarmed by the fact that she had left his chambers with the baby by herself, but that quickly gave way to a sort of pride as he righted himself near her as if he was pleased that the she left his chambers with the baby by herself.

She smiled softly at him, but her eyes quickly turned elsewhere in the oval command room to the floor-to-ceiling viewing window and the glowing whitish orb in the distance.

She watched in silence as R'chnt clicked softly and returned to his chair, extending his arm towards her in an open invitation to stand next to him, which K'Shai did. As the baby shifted in her cradling arms, R'chnt lightly stroked her with his fingers, drawing in fascinated curious glances turned into unrepressed stares from the others in the room.

R'chnt did not mind the gazes. Let them see and watch, he thought. Every time K'Shai was out on the ship, it solidified her place just a little more and for rotation after rotation she had done so aboard the atoll.

Now it was time for her to do so again on the K'ojol amongst the Blooded hunters that were not only part of his hunting pack, but also crew aboard the ship as well. Her proud presence in the corridors, walking about her own business amongst the crowded hallways full of Leader-less youngbloods also made a statement, and K'Shai, whether she realized it or not, was telling everyone exactly where she belonged.

Normally, the direct stares would be considered a dire offense, and open the unabashed starer to receiving challenge, but R'chnt instead sat quietly, allowing W'rsa, Nei'tuk-de, and L'vynde to see K'Shai and the child, and take their fill of the sight as K'Shai's gaze remained locked on the viewing window before her, seeing his world for the first time.

Just when R'chnt thought the group in the control room had seen enough of K'Shai to tend back to their duties, he reached for the baby, distracting K'Shai's gaze for only a moment as she readily slid the sleeping child into his arms.

He watched the infant, who had grown unusually much in just a few days, with equally as much interest and fascination as the others in the room now watched him. He found himself paying none of them any mind as he quietly held his offspring and K'Shai slowly stepped away, closer to the portal.

"Is that… your world?" She said finally after a long silence, simply watching the planet and its moons and suns slowly coming closer into view.

"K'Shai, that is _your_ world, too." He said with an intrigued click.

He could not help but notice she always referred to their chambers as _his_ , the world as _his._ Habit, perhaps, he thought, or a display of unreadiness to accept the transition she had already begun, he could not be sure. He corrected her softly, just a passive reminder that she should consider the chambers, the world, the home she will come to know, as hers as well, for she would have a place there now, beside him.

K'Shai did not even glance back at him. She merely watched in wonder as the planet loomed closer and closer.

On one rather memorable trip around Earth, R'chnt had taken K'Shai into Jupiter's rings. Besides the colorful gaseous beauty of the yellow and orange and white world and the dark rings of space dust that encircled it, K'Shai marveled at the size of the planet.

Earth itself had looked simply massive when seen from a shuttle craft from space, but Jupiter had look enormous. Now, as Yaut drew closer and closer, and K'Shai could just start to make out colors of oceans and land masses, compared to the only other two worlds she had seen, this one outsized them all.

As the hunt ship continued on, the world, and its three moons nearby, all began to become clearer and clearer. Two of the moons were on one side of the world, while the third one orbited opposite them. The dual moons on the nearer side both had prismatic rings with every color of the rainbow dancing around them.

As the view drew closer and closer, K'Shai did notice the rings appeared to be moving, sparkling, as the white clouds in the atmosphere of them swirled around slowly.

Beyond Yaut, on the side of the single moon were two bright whitish yellow and orange globes. Despite how far in the distance they were, the suns burned so intensely she shielded her eyes and squinted. She had become so accustomed to the subdued amber lighting inside the clan ship and the hunt ship and constant darkness beyond them, that even the single sun of Earth was a little much for her the first time she stepped back onto its soil.

She supposed it made sense for the Yautja people; they basked in high height, it was simply natural for them, and seeing the planet where they originated from she now knew why.

Her mind lit up with visions of what the surface of Yaut would be like, how different the planet looked already with its dual suns and triple moons, and nestled into a completely unfamiliar backdrop of stars.

The world's oceans came into view followed by the land masses. From so far above, neither looked terribly different than Earth's. Both views offered up blue waters, white swirls of clouds, and land masses of browns and greens. Perhaps, she thought, Yaut would not be so different after all.


	17. Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

She watched the commotion warily as eager youngbloods, no longer even bothering to concern themselves with her presence aboard the hunt ship, piled into the kehrite ready to exit through the door on the upper level. She knew more young hunters were awaiting their chance to leave the ship through the docking bay door on the lower level, but she returned to R'chnt's chambers until the bulk of everyone had left the ship before she would depart.

A'ryin'di had grown restless, perhaps with the excitement permeating the shell-like walls of the ship.

While K'Shai wanted to remain in the control room to watch the ship enter the planet's atmosphere, she did so instead alone in R'chnt's chambers as the infant nursed herself full.

K'Shai watched the planet grow larger and larger through the windows until finally she could see buildings and cliffs and leaves on trees after the ship soared quickly over the surface of an almost endless looking deep blue ocean. The ship settled down in a red-dirt flatland that looked as though it was at the top of a plateau over a valley.

Other ships had already landed and stood powered down. As the K'ojol was positioned for a quick landing K'Shai could see a few groups of several dozen Yautja going about their business between them.

What she noticed the most though, were the trees not far off from the landing spot of the K'ojol. She had expected, because she had seen the green and blue outlines of the world on the first approach, that Yaut would not look too drastically different than Earth, despite the fact that it had three moons and two suns.

The trees that skirted the flat landing zone still followed some apparent basic laws of the universe. They were still trees. They had trunks and no doubt they had roots that fed on water and nutrients from the soil they were embedded in.

The trunks stretched tall towards the sun and the leaves soaked up atmosphere and light and rain and nourished the tree to make it grow. Beyond that, they had no real comparison to Earth trees at all, at least not any tree she knew of in the present day. Perhaps something prehistoric, she thought vaguely.

The leaves on the trees were big enough to blanket her body entirely twice around. They were green, but the shade was more of a purplish-green accented by yellow lacework that looked like glowing-blooded veins. The leaves had clusters of beautiful white and purple flowers the size of her head protruding off the ends of each branch like clusters of grapes.

They had delicate, flaky leaves and deep red protrusions emerging from the center that looked rather like a sort of Venus fly trap. Even the trunks, though still a brownish-color as one would expect of any tree, looked foreign and many of them were coiled in vines that at first glance appeared to be yellow and black snakes with a girth as big as her thigh.

Beyond the trees, from what K'Shai could see out the window as A'ryni'di suckled her breast dry and unlatched with a little sucking sound, was a sky as clear and pastel blue as her imagination could never even draw up, highlighted with white puffy clouds and the occasional flock of birds which were too far away for her to see in any type of detail, even to gauge size.

"K'Shai, come my mate." R'chnt announced from the doorway of his chambers after the pounding sound of mighty pairs of clawed feet had dimmed to none as the ship was emptied.

With a slight pause, K'Shai turned, adjusted her grip on the infant in her arms and headed towards R'chnt. She stopped again suddenly, realizing she was leaving his chambers without any belongings and suddenly it felt wrong. Was she supposed to take luggage with her? Perhaps supplies for the baby, like her bassinette and cloth wrappings? Maybe she needed to pack up garments or lotions or all the things that people needed to have in their home.

She instinctively changed her trajectory to grab up at least a few things.

"K'Shai, bring nothing. All you need will be there." R'chnt said briskly.

She pressed her lips together feeling a little foolish, but realized she had just come to think of the ship as _home_ , and somehow leaving it and everything on it behind felt like she was abandoning home, _again._

In retrospect, she had abandoned home over and over during the last two years, and she had not even realized unit just now, how much she had come to think of the K'ojol as home. She figured of course they would be back to it; the vessel was R'chnt's, not a cruise ship she was only visiting for a brief time.

R'chnt had impressed upon her the idea that Yaut was home, but she did not feel that way about it at all. To her, it was a foreign world with prehistoric looking trees and two suns and the idea of leaving the K'ojol to venture out into it, with a newborn baby wrapped in her grip, was disconcerting at best.

Somehow, being on the atoll, while in orbit of Earth, did not seem so different, she thought in retrospect.

Although when she first stepped aboard the atoll after R'chnt had been injured, the days passed by in a blur and she barely thought about her unusual surroundings. Earth was still visible, so there was familiarity, even though the view was different out the window.

Now though, K'Shai thought quietly as she glanced one last time out the viewing window before the door to R'chnt's chamber slid closed behind her, the view was totally different. The K'ojol was comforting and familiar.

It was home.

A'ryin'di had been born there, and for the last many months, it was simply the only comforting and familiar place she could go.

R'chnt extended an arm around her shoulder, enveloping her into a comforting grip as she walked with him towards the lift at the end of the hall.

The lift slid easily down to the lower level and K'Shai stepped out still wrapped in R'chnt's grip. Even the unusual style of the lift had become familiar to her. Her first time on it, it made her quite nauseous and she had half a mind to simply climb between the two levels using a ladder between the upper and lower engine access rooms.

The lift was a platform that moved inside a tube, but there were no walls to the platform, so unlike an elevator, K'Shai watched the walls move as the floor dropped from under her and it made her nearly lose balance and feel suddenly motion sick.

Now, it was just as familiar to her as every other piece of the K'ojol, and although she said nothing as she walked away from it and headed towards the docking bay with R'chnt, she still felt apprehensive about what awaited her outside the K'ojol.

When she walked into the docking bay, W'rsa and two other hunters were just finishing up directly 'aseigan to clear out trophies and gather equipment. Everyone stopped for a moment and looked up to the Elder Leader and his mate.

K'Shai could not help but notice how their eyes all lingered on her and the offspring she cradled. Some of the 'aseigan simply lost color in their skin the moment they saw her. It was obvious they had not been on the atoll, and had never seen her before. They looked more than just surprised to see her; K'Shai was quite sure they looked genuinely afraid of her.

W'rsa barked to them to return to their tasks and they did so with such an alarmed jump it gave K'Shai pause. The way the Yautja 'aseigan, shorter and scrawnier than the hunters, dropped-headed and submissive, jumped in fearful apprehension when a Blooded hunter ordered them was something she imagined she would never get used to.

As her attention turned away from the 'aseigan and R'chnt stepped away from her for a moment to talk to W'rsa briefly, K'Shai's gaze shifted to her left as something else she was quite sure she would never get used to caught her focus.

The shuttle bay door, long and wide much like an oversized garage door, was open and the fresh air from the planet blew in whispily, carrying with it the scents of the alien world.

The heat of the world blew in on the breeze, along with sweet smells. The world beyond the ship, from what she could see, was lush and green and vibrant like a jungle or rain forest, and although she could feel the sweltering heat, it was not as humid as one might expect a jungle to be.

The hunt ship's engines hummed quietly and whirred down with less disturbance of sound than a hairdryer caused, and she could hear the bustling of Yautja just outside echoing in.

Sounds echoed around the landing zone; clattering of talons and metaling chinking of weapons and armor being handled, moved, packed onto transport vessels. Voices, rumbling and deep, reverberated between the metallic hulls of the vessels.

K'Shai tiptoed quietly over to the top edge of the ramp and looked out, squinting at the almost overpowering bright light, as her eyes were so well adjusted to the dim ambient light in the hunt ship.

She listened to the noises for a moment and slowly tuned them out, focusing instead to the sounds from the planet.

She could hear animals chittering and calling from far in the distance, past the trees that lined the landing zone, and from the sky above.

She tipped her head up as a cackling pair of birds whooshed passed the landing zone. They were as large as herons and K'Shai could see bright yellow tail feathers as they passed overhead. She followed them beyond the curve of the K'ojol until they were out of sight and her eyes settled for a fraction of a second onto one of the suns shining brightly.

She scanned back down towards the trees and surveyed the edge of the forest, once again hearing high-pitched calls from animals that could easily have been frogs of some sort, amidst the echoing calls of what she assumed were birds or maybe even some kind of monkeys.

She tried to envision the types of animals associated with the calls she heard, and the realized it was a fruitless endeavor, for the sounds could very well have been coming from creatures similar to snails.

Only as R'chnt stepped towards her did her attention turn away from total focus on the bright sky, the green jungle, and the noises of the animals.

She had not even noticed that everyone in the landing zone had stopped dead in their tracks to stare at her. She did not notice the silence that fell upon the scene, not until she glanced to R'chnt who nodded his head softly towards her and she turned once again to the ramp and the world beyond.

Her eyes met dozens of eyes locked on her as hunters all stopped to gape and even 'aseigan took a careful moment to stare.

K'Shai glanced over the halted Yautja and smirked her lips together, instinctively pulling her child closer to her breast as if somehow that would shield and protect her better from whatever lay ahead while R'chnt positioned himself in front of both of them, which would definitely protect them from whatever lay ahead. K'Shai followed just behind R'chnt down the ramp, looking about once again.

There were a few familiar faces watching the situation with alert interest. She saw S'aruch-de amongst them who seemed keen to flick his gaze between her and the watching crowd as if he was expecting, anticipating, someone in the crowd to say or do something they shouldn't.

He looked ready to pounce, and purely entertained by the entire situation, watching K'Shai step down the ramp with one tusk cocked into a grin.

R'chnt stepped off the ramp into the red dirt and K'Shai halted at the edge of the ramp, before stepping down onto her first alien world.

R'chnt paused and turned back, watching her patiently, clicking softly. W'rsa and the others behind her all stopped and surveyed K'Shai's back as she scanned the trees and the ships and looked from them to the dirt.

R'chnt imagined she felt very much the same as he once did when he was very young and stepped out onto his first alien world for his blooding hunt. Until that point, his training had been either on Yaut or on his leader's hunt ship.

He had never been on another world and he recalled feeling a rush of excitement and pride as he stepped off the ship onto the windy and rainy world as fire flickered across the sky from comets. That was a ferocious planet, well worthy of a Blooding hunt.

He stepped off eagerly and immediately started out to familiarize himself with the world and the layout of his surroundings, as he had been trained.

He watched K'Shai now, doing exactly as he had been taught, surveying her surroundings and analyzing the land. Her natural senses were clearly sharp enough to take her awareness of the new lands to a new level.

He had not yet begun teaching her such things, but it was obvious she knew them already from natural instincts and previous experience on her world. She paused and surveyed the world and paused some more and took in another look and another and finally R'chnt realized that she was outright reluctant to leave the ship.

"K'Shai," he said flatly. "Join me."

Why she was having trepidation, he could not imagine. This was _home_.

As he had told her many times over the last few months, Yaut was his home as well as hers now. This was not a foreboding world with vicious prey; all the dangerous animals were generally well away from the clan city, especially with the raucous of the ships landing.

There would be no dangers immediately present, and if there was, she had him to protect her, a job which he took seriously.

K'Shai eyed R'chnt, clearly picking up on the fact that she was delaying entirely too long at departing the ship.

She took a deep breath, pulled back her shoulders, firmed up her grip on A'ryin'di, who was sound asleep in her arms now, completely unconcerned with the change of scenery, and watched her own foot touch down into the red soil of the alien world.

She suddenly felt _different_ somehow. She had done it, with a sort of "here I go" hesitant pride. With one foot in front of the other, she stepped onto the alien planet.

Really, it was the first time a human stepped onto an alien world, she thought. Of course, men had been to the moon, but Yaut was no moon. It wasn't even anywhere near Earth.

If she had her math calculations correct, the flight between Earth and Yaut had taken just over a week of Earth's time.

She had no idea what speed they were travelling at, and R'chnt had scoffed at the idea of _warp_ when she had explained what it was, but still, regardless of how it was figured, Yaut was nowhere close to Earth.

She had gone farther than any human she had ever known to exist, and now, she was looking around at an alien world that she would eventually come to call home. Despite her initial hesitation, once she had touched down onto the soil, she no longer felt reluctant.

Really, what was she worried about? She thought to herself as she moved along with R'chnt and the others out of the landing zone.

The planet was not _really_ that different than Earth. It was round and green and blue, and there was red dirt like she knew existed on Earth. There were green trees with brown trunks, as with Earth. The sky was blue, as was Earth. It was just a little _different_ , that was all, but it was where R'chnt belonged and called home, and where her daughter would be raised.

She smiled to herself as she stepped towards a transport vehicle waiting at the end of the landing zone.

Her definition of home had changed so much over all this time, and Yaut was nothing more than a new location for her to settle into. A'ryin'di had certainly settled; she double checked before approaching the vehicle.

The baby was sound asleep.

The transport vehicle looked like a floating pontoon. It hovered stationary while it waited for its passengers, its propulsion system below the deck barely humming, but glowing so brightly blue it shined even in broad daylight like a low rider car with neons under the chassis.

Other Yautja were lingering near the device, which was large enough to easily hold forty adults, but none of them made a move towards it at all.

'Aseigan and Blooded alike, all eager to return to the clan and their business, no doubt, paused apprehensively and watched K'Shai tail so closely behind R'chnt that their bodies lightly brushed into each other as they moved.

R'chnt paused at the single step up onto the floating platform and K'Shai skirted around him onto the device first. He moved in behind her, brushing his hips against hers as she climbed onto the vehicle, with his arms stretched out to either side of her, channeling her forward and making himself into a living blockade between her and the other Yautja waiting behind him, who all kept an alert distance.

R'chnt had simultaneously both yielded to K'Shai and postured dominance and protectiveness over her and his offspring, and the message was clear.

K'Shai moved to a far corner away from the entrance step and sat on something that probably wasn't a seat, but it served her well enough.

She did notice as the wary Yautja began to move onto the vessel, keeping a wide berth between themselves and R'chnt, who stood guarding over them, that there were actually no seats on the platform at all.

It was a standing room only transport pad, and she received many curious glances as she seated herself upon an angled corner support piece to the guard rail. It was simply in her nature to sit, especially on a moving vehicle.

When the vessel started on its journey, she could feel it swaying, and noticed everyone who was standing braced as the thing kicked into gear. As the vessel moved under its own direction, apparently, she noticed that perhaps the Yautja were not just braced to remain standing on the platform.

There was a definitive tension in the air, and while much of it was reciprocated from the packed crowd, she noticed that it seemed to spur from R'chnt.

He was tall and rigid, clearly tense and on guard, vaguely hiding it all behind a shield of edging savagery as he looked on to the others, surveying them as though any of them might attack in a split second.

He realized she had picked up on his abrasive posture and her own tension seemed to grow in response as well.

K'Shai shuffled the child in her arms and noticeably cast her eyes everywhere but towards the crowd or even to him. R'chnt remained wary.

This was the first moment that his alien mate and half-breed child were arriving to the home world. This was _different_ than being on the clan ship, and while some of the Yautja on the transport had already been familiar with K'Shai aboard the ship, to see her and the infant amongst the males, instead of riding back to the mei'sa on a transport of only females, was simply so unusual that no one really seemed to know how to react.

K'Shai looked about apprehensively, and then shifted her gaze once again to the trees and sights of the planet around her as the floating pad zoomed along smoothly and silently down the trail.

Although she had not yet come to think of the Yautja homeworld as home, she did suddenly realize that she had figured once finally on the planet, there would be something of a reprieve from the nearly constant state of alert posturing that she was so accustomed to from the Yautja.

She assumed the Yautja would be relaxed more and there would be a chance for all of them to ease up, allowing time for K'Shai and R'chnt to discover the new parenthood that they had barely begun to live.

Having dealt with enough unnerving situations aboard the clan ship, she hoped that R'chnt especially would ease up for a moment and be rid of the constant need to be defensive and ready for a fight.

She hoped the Yautja, undoubtedly all just eager and happy to be home again, would just turn their attention to their own businesses and do whatever was in their normal activities to do, while letting her enjoy her new motherhood and R'chnt discovered fatherhood in his own way.

If such things were to happen, it did not seem for the moment that would happen soon. K'Shai could smell the musk of the Yautja around her emanating, almost to the point of making the air unpleasant.

It was a scent of apprehensive anxiety and brimming eagerness, and it combined with the foreign smells of the alien world that hit her nostrils, and drew her attention away from the tension on the floating platform.

She turned her eyes away from the Yautja, from R'chnt, and from her sleeping baby, as she watched the tall, vine covered jungle trees move past her eyes. She tried to absorb everything she could, looking around as if she might never see any of it again.

All the sights and smells and sounds were so unusual to her. She could hear calls of creatures howling up through the trees and smell the scent of the flowers between the trees and the vines as the floating pontoon sailed easily over the red dirt and rock pathway.

The infant in her arms was completely uncaring of her mother's shift from reserved anxiousness to flat out stunned amazement.

She still had her eyes shut, warm, content, and more at ease than any other Yautja on the platform, and had not been in the least bit bothered by the sounds of the jungle, the feel of the motion of the vehicle, or the h'dui'se in the air.

K'Shai tried to take in so much of the sights around her so quickly she found herself unable to focus on any one thing at a time in exchange for trying to see everything at once. All of R'chnt's diligent training on focusing her mind and absorbing her surroundings were overridden in a moment.

The breeze gently whirred up some orange sprinkles of sandy dirt and rustled the deep purplish-green leaves. She was certain she saw something moving high up in one tree, too. Perhaps it was some kind of snake, or maybe the vine itself was moving.

Perhaps it was a Yautja watching from a better view, she could not tell one way or another and the vehicle rounded a curve, so she lost sight of it and focused on something totally different.

"Oh wow!" She exclaimed in a shocked whisper.

R'chnt gazed at her, noting how everyone else turned to look at her. Some may have understood her alien language, or the implication behind the words, but all looked quizzically at her regardless.

He watched her survey the planet, never removing his eyes from her as she ogled the sights of his world in wonder. As she gasped in awed amazement he allowed his body to nudge delicately into hers, an amused grin stretching over his tusks; a look he often donned when K'Shai's attention drifted in wondrous fascination with her surroundings.

It was an unusual thing, he thought; her need to gaze and study and gasp and delight in the simple surroundings of a world or the stars.

He was trained, however viciously as required, and thusly always trained his students in the same manner, to pay attention closely to the situation and surroundings around him only as much as it affected him.

Gawking at what K'Shai referred to as 'the beauty' of the land had no bearing at all on the events of a hunt.

Sitting for endless hours positioned in a chair solely to watch the stars go by, seemed such a curious thing to him. Still, the way she did it, the way she lit up with absolute enjoyment, it was hard for him to not stop and watch _her_.

It was not that R'chnt could not appreciate the differences in the two planets. Certainly, there were many, it was simply not in his nature to sit and ponder those differences. Yaut was home.

Even all the moons and other planets in the system were almost like home in that he had been to them so many times he knew them equally as well. He had been to many worlds with many different types of landscapes.

He found Earth to be equally as foreign as the rest of the planets beyond the Yautja system, but it was hardly cause for him to stop and stare, absorbing its _beauty_.

He always evaluated his surroundings closely, especially on new worlds, but also even in familiar territory.

Learning the lay of the land and studying the prey in it was a need no hunter should slack on, but the hunter's need to take in the terrain was done for quite a different reason than K'Shai's.

It was something he had yet to begin to teach K'Shai, but the point seemed almost a little unnecessary, he considered; she would probably spend more time gazing at a new world than actually hunting. There was something beautiful about her absolute wonder, and the others aboard the transport were equally as fascinated by her reaction to the sights of their home world.

No Yautja he knew would gape in wonder at the stars, nor did they focus on the scope of the terrain of their world more than to merely gauge it for travelling.

He watched K'Shai's eyes bounce from dirt to tree to sky and back again and again until she stopped moving entirely and stared in open-mouthed wonder, taking in the view while twenty other hunters stared at _her_.

Had he caught any of his students stopping to simply admire a planet during a hunt, he would most certainly bash them into the ground for failing to pay attention, for any prey would likely do the same if given an opening. With K'Shai, though, everything was different, and he found absolute delight in watching her, and mild amusement watching the others react to her.

The only view that really mattered to a hunter was that of the prey coming at them, or the one stalking them that may have otherwise gone unnoticed, as he once learned due to not paying enough attention to his surroundings.

Too many hunters that were either far too cocky or inexperienced, or often enough, both of those things, would grow too comfortable in familiar hunting grounds and their wariness and alterness would fade. Such lapses of attention would easily lead to severe injury or death. It served any hunter well to always remember to stay sharp and attuned to his environment, and judging by the way K'Shai gaped at the scenery around her, she would have no trouble at all learning that one simple lesson.

She could not even produce a sound beyond the first shocked whisper as her eyes locked onto the sight before her while the floating platform continued towards its destination down the incline of the mountain.

Being on an alien world was a rush of excitement and she could barely keep her wonder and curiosity contained, but now the planet had won. The beauty before her was overwhelming. The planet looked almost prehistoric; K'Shai had never seen such sights before.

The leaves, the dirt, the colors, the sounds echoing from the wilderness, the oddity of seeing three dozen space ships parked idly amongst a jungle of trees that would have made any human being think they were in the middle of an uncivilized land, the view of the moons and their crystalline rings above her head, and the bright sky lit by dual suns blazing gold, were all just too much, and then, she saw _the city_.


	18. Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was not like anything she could have imagined at all.

The trees on the top landing plateau had successfully blocked her view until they descended the winding path to the point where she could see the lay of the land. To the left of the mountain the floating pontoon was gliding down was a vast valley far below, separated by a wide river.

The view was endless, and adorned with mountains and hills both near and far. The homeworld looked like a prehistoric jungle, so far as K'Shai could imagine one to look. The lush jungle canopy shimmered a blueish green as if it was luminescing in the sunlight. The colors were brilliant, and as the suns shone down upon the valley, their bright rays made the water speckle, casting glistening brilliance throughout the terrain.

Feeding the river was a massive waterfall, larger than even the great Niagara Falls which K'Shai had seen once just a few years before. Even from the distance she was at, she could hear the water roaring powerfully, smashing over the cliff to the rocks below and causing a great plume of mist which prismed with color as the suns' rays illuminated it.

Beyond the waterfalls was a wide river head which was hard not to consider a lake. K'Shai's eyes followed the flowing water further back along its curving route as it winded out of sight behind rocky shoals and more jungle.

A large wall was just barely visible at the furthest edge of what she could see and far in the distance, popping up just barely through the mighty trees was a silhouette of rigid lines that could only be the tip of a massive pyramid. To the right of the river was the Clan City, nestled into layers along a U-shaped formation of the mountain.

Structures were built upon what appeared to be tiered levels of the cliffs which bordered the city, and obviously wrapped around it to the river and waterfalls. The top tier of buildings, which K'Shai could see the clearest, were backed up to the jungle on one end and as the top level curved around the mountainscape, some of the buildings backed up to both the jungle and an overlook of the waterfalls, along with the rest of the valley.

The buildings were all shaped as thought they were stacked blocks, square and tall and some of them appeared to be chiseled right into the mountain. Some of the buildings along the top tier that she could see were capped in open-sided gazebos atop towers, for what purpose she could not be sure.

As the transport pad drew closer to the city, K'Shai could feel the aniticipation rising. The ride itself was not long at all, but it was obvious as the vessel began to approach the first of the buildings, that the Yautja had used the time to hold back their enthusiasm just to be home.

By the time the platform halted in an apparently designated space at the edge of the city, almost like a cul-de-sac before the gaping entrance to the sprawling heart of the Kaunte Dar'een Clan, the Yautja h'dui'se was nearly overpowering.

As the entire Yautja group exited the platform first, R'chnt waited in silence, watching K'Shai continue to focus on the city before her until the pad had cleared and he directed her to exit before him. She jumped down gingerly off the platform, gripping A'ryin'di closely as she did, trying not to trip or appear graceless as she still gaped at the city before her.

The buildings K'Shai surveyed in surreal amazement looked rather like mostly like stucco-type structures. Some of them looked like they were etched out of solid granite. Almost all of the buildings were either white or pale yellow in color, with natural wear from the environment, but they were all a stark contrast to the dark copper colors of the ships she had gotten so used to.

The entire planet was just as hot as the clan ship, but it was infinitely more bright. Somehow, given the dark and comparatively cramped ships, K'Shai had expected the planet to be darker and less idyllic.

The majority of the buildings were typically shaped buildings; squares. A few had slanted sides giving them a sort of hexagonal look, while a few others that K'Shai had spotted from the mountain side, were pyramids.

Almost all of them had open, apparently glassless windows, doorless doors, and stairs carved into staggering formations right into the sides of them to connect levels. Some of the buildings even had walkways connecting them to one another, and while they were wide, K'Shai did notice a lack of any type of safety railing.

The buildings themselves look rather primitive, at least at first glance, as if they were ancient structures built from the simplest, natural materials. As K'Shai walked off the transport and followed at R'chnt's side through the city, she glanced into the buildings nearby through their doorless doorways.

Although the outsides of the buildings looked like etched stone, some of them carved with hieroglyphic type inscriptions that identified the buildings and the Yautja who would utilize them, or boast of hunts and kills, the insides of them, from what she could see, were well-appointed with all common modern needs and advanced requirements that suited the purpose of each building.

The lack of doors was incredibly common for the Yautja. For the most part, privacy and modesty were non-existent in their culture, as K'Shai had quickly learned. At first, it was an uncomfortable concept for her to adjust to, but she realized as she glanced readily into the buildings to see whatever sights might be in them to see, it had simply become a natural way of life for her.

A door to seal off a room such as an armory or a ship's engines was a necessity, but a door to close off your own private sleeping area was a luxury that one must earn, especially _locking_ doors. R'chnt's chambers were the only ones on the K'ojol, with the exception of the engine room and armory on the lower level, that locked.

Lower castes, especially 'aseigan, had absolutely no privacy of any form. Even youngbloods shared common sleeping rooms that were much like dormitories and also lacked doors to the entry way. There were no doors separating showers or bathrooms, and only in the mei'sa aboard the clan ship did the two areas have any kind of a dividing wall at all.

In the common sleeping rooms, young hunters would fight for whatever particular spot they deemed the best, and sometimes hunters also might find themselves needing to defend their right to a particular set of chambers.

As a Blooded Yautja earned greater privileges within the clan, luxuries like private chambers with doors were granted; not just to hunters, either. Workers of suitably high status, such as the Elders, like L'ruch, could accrue that type of accommodations. But generally, doors to such private accommodations certainly did not lock.

Such privileges were given to the elite Yautja, the Elder hunters, Leaders who were granted their own ships, arbitrators, and the highest castes of the females; the strongest Clan members who proved their worth to achieve such things.

While K'Shai had been told that matters over property such as particular chambers, would be settled in the kehrite in a regulated spar, the severity of which was entirely dependent upon the matter to be settled, she had not actually seen any such spars take place during her time on the Clan ship; the Yautja were simply too busy on Earth.

She had been told, though, that with an entirely new shift in society standings on the horizon, due to the numbers of losses and numbers of youngblood who would no doubt be looking to move up far faster than they ever could have normally, typical Yautja life would be heavily disrupted in the coming weeks after arriving home, which also accounted for some of the eager musk in the air, along with an impending breeding season.

As she looked around between the buildings, she noticed no lack of sparring arenas. Some were small and nestled into oddly picturesque garden-like nooks which were adorned with not only trees, shrubbery, vines and flowers, but also pillars and skulls and bones, adding a truly surreal and forboding feel to the beauty of the setting. Some of the kehrites she spotted were larger, and more centrally placed, as if they were designed to accommodate larger crowds of spectators.

As her tour into the clan city continued on, K'Shai's attention turned towards a massive kehrite positioned just away from what she could only consider the town square. There was an obvious elevated stage in the middle of the square, with two totems on each side.

The platform was heavily adorned above and below with bones and skulls and inscribed with passages to the Gods, blessings for the hunters and the clan, and ominous warnings against those who turn their back from honorable paths. K'Shai surveyed the stage briefly, getting the definite feel that it was some kind of public gallows, but her attention was drawn away to the kehrite in the near distance. Transfixed by the sight, she stopped in her tracks, hung her jaw and as R'chnt surveyed her, he recognized that particular look of stunned amazement as she eyed him and then the kehrite again.

"It is a kehrite, K'Shai." He said crispily.

She had seen them before, he was not sure why she took particular interest in this one, although it was the main kehrite for matters that affected the clans.

K'Shai could not move. She surveyed the kehrite in slow study. It was not just the heavily adorned bone trophies on display, like a gothic museum to creatures the likes of which she could barely understand that caught her attention. It was not the beautiful jungle backing up to the arena that transfized her. It was not the ornate carvings into the pillars in the center of the elevated fighting platform in the middle of the stadium-sized coliseum that captivated her. It was the frame work that surrounded the kehrite that drew her attention the most.

Massive stone pillars surrounded the entire circular arena, which had metal bleachers staggered in elevated levels, like any good stadium would have for proper viewing of the fight. Each pillar was intricately carved and adorned with skulls and bones; tens of thousands of them of every size from creatures great and small covering the stone pillars on pegs, and piled at the base.

The stone pillars themselves, each one four times the height of the tallest of Yautja, were situated in a distinct pattern that she was absolutely certain she had seen before.

Each pair of erect pillars was topped with an equally hefty slab. Dozens of pairs of vertical stones capped with heavy toppers formed what looked almost like doorways that encompassed the massive circular fighting pit.

The Yautja propensity for pyramid shaped buildings did not go unnoticed to K'Shai, but she realized she was looking at an alien version of stone hedge. She stared at it for a while longer until R'chnt grumbled and urged her to continue on.

K'Shai walked beside R'chnt, who pointedly kept his naturally large strides contained to match her ambling, half-stunned pace. He had no doubts that K'Shai would certainly want to have a look around, but he had not expected her to be quite so transfixed.

There was a notable difference between what she called _cities_ and what he knew of as a city; he had tried to tell her it was different. He allowed her all the time she wanted to look, while the baby slept soundly in her arms, completely oblivious to anything going on around her.

While the alien amongst the Yautja looked around, the Yautja looked at her. It seemed to R'chnt that K'Shai neither noticed nor cared that all eyes were cast on her. There was a distinct tension in the air, but it was not coming from K'Shai. For the Yautja who gazed upon her walking on their home world, in their home city, standing at the heart of the clan, it was a difficult transition to adjust to. There was something about her being on their world that suddenly cancelled out the acceptance of her presence on the atoll for the last many months.

R'chnt maintained his position at her side. He was careful not to step ahead of K'Shai, and made no attempt to stop her from stepping in front of, or away from him. He noted females, including Neh'rti, keeping wary watch of the small human and the tiny infant in her arms, but they did not interfere for the moment.

He knew it was not only K'Shai's alien presence that was causing a disruption to the workers and 'aseigan who had never been off world, along with the youngbloods and hunters that had simply not seen K'Shai before, but the hybrid offspring and the fact that they were both out walking in the clan city without female back up was equally as unusual.

He ticked his mandibles, clicking in amusement as the realization of what a sight the three of them must be finally struck him. He kept his position alert and guarded, broadcasting to all watched on that they could take their fill to look, but dare not get too close or speak out of turn. The female pack lingering watchfully a few dozen yards away did also announce the same message silently; don't get too close. K'Shai was walking freely, without the slightest realization that she was under heavy guard.

She could not stop looking around. The place was so foreign and yet so familiar. Some of the buildings reminded her of adobes. Some of the pyramid structures she spied in the distance looked like Mayan temples she had seen in school books. Far atop the cliff side, partially hidden behind trees she could just see the base of another massive pyramid with smooth sides, like something from Egypt. Several of triangular buildings she had seen so far shared both the steppe-like sides and smooth sides.

Every building she saw, including the main kehrite and even the main stage, from the outside, looked ancient, yet, perfectly blended into stone panels, were all the accommodations a modern Yautja society would need.

Somehow, the Yautja had mastered blending advanced technology with a primitive-on-the-surface lifestyle. They were a civilized culture, but unlike humans, they were usually clad scantily. They were brutal, aggressive, and vicious, but also social and held to strict codes of conduct.

Many hunters preferred to seek their path alone with basic bladed weapons, brute strength, and well-honed natural senses, while it was also common for others to hunt in packs, backed up by targeting systems, smart weapons that could seek out the intended heat source, explosive devices and a full computerized information display in their helmet to guide them, keep them in communication with others, and command their vessel remotely.

They ate their meat raw, but also had modern cooking accommodations. It simply did not matter to the Yautja how they took their food. They could fly through the stars with technology K'Shai could barely understand, yet they lived in stone buildings that reflected ancient history on her own world.

The Yautja people were a seamless merging of enlightened civilization, organic technology, ancient cultural beliefs, middle-ages barbarism, and incredible technology.

The planet, it seemed to K'Shai, was a direct reflection of the Yautja culture. It was an organic coalescence of time honored tradition and advanced engineering and the more she noticed about the clan city, the more she realized that what at first glance appeared to be ancient and primitive, was far more advanced than she could have realized. It was fluidic blend of primitive living and the comforts of modern technological luxuries, just like its people.

The city itself was sprawling and complex, but R'chnt explained each new facet to her as they walked, drawing in everyone's stars and stopping crowds as he put her on display yet again. K'Shai was too transfixed in gaping amazement at everything around her to notice or care, but R'chnt maintained a dignified growl as needed to warn onlookers.

It was not until they reached an overlook with stairs and ramps carved into the cliff side that K'Shai even realized they were on a middle level, not the lowest.

"What are those buildings there?" She asked as she pointed down to the lowest level of the Clan city.

The buildings were smaller, long and flat, more like warehouses than the multi-story buildings on the current level or those above her. Though the lowest level was large and vast, it was contained in the middle of the terrain, like the basin of a quarry.

"'Aseigan." He said flatly.

K'Shai nodded silently, and they continued on their path. As they headed down a long path between buildings, K'Shai noticed the difference in the types of buildings from spot to spot. When she first entered the clan city, the large buildings appeared to be more luxurious, and suitable for gatherings and various activities while the buildings they approached now were clearly working facilities.

K'Shai could smell the familiar and unmistakable scent of blood and leather. As they approached one building, she could see clearly through the wide doorways that it was a metal working facility, and the echoing sounds of metal on metal chinking confirmed that.

They walked on, the longest route possible, until A'ryin'di stirred right as they reached the base of stairwell scaling up the cliff on a far wing of the steppe that the second level was built upon.

"Where to now?" She asked while she shifted A'ryin'di, who quickly grew restless.

"I will show you the rest." He nodded, with an upward tilt of his head.

They walked up the stairs to the next tier of the city. Although the steps were safe, wide, and solidly carved into the stone of the mountain, it was a steep climb that K'Shai was definitely not accustomed to, especially after so long aboard the clan ship.

She halted at the top and sat on a short wall, using the baby's need to nurse as a deflection of her own fatigue. R'chnt stood, like a guard, watching over the pair, silent and rigid, warily eyeing the Yautja eyeing them while K'Shai continued to scan her new surroundings.

"So, you said the lowest tier, all the way down there," she asked as she gazed down the cliff to the basin at the bottom, "is where the 'aseigan reside. And the main level we came in on is the common area and where youngbloods and workers live. What is this level?"

"This is for Honored Yautja."

"So is this where you live?"

"No, K'Shai," he said with a dismissive grunt, a little as though the thought offended him. "This is for Blooded hunters who have proven their worth. Even for Leaders, but not Elites and Elders. Where I reside is there," he said nodding with his head towards the upmost tier.

K'Shai scanned the buildings on the level where she sat nursing A'ryin'di. Each building was designed, as one would expect any building to be, with different levels of floors. R'chnt explained to her while they waited, that the levels of the structures directly indicated which Yautja lived where.

Much like even the two levels of his ship, the lowest floors of any building were for the lowest ranked, and the highest floors were for the upper ranked Yautja who had quite literally fought their way up the ladder.

The clan city itself was built on a tiered system with the highest-ranking males living on the top most tier which was well appointed, while the 'aseigan far below the cliffs lived in what was, essentially, a slum.

Once they reached the top of the city, K'Shai paused again, breathless not only from the climb up, but also from the view. She had walked beside R'chnt up the stairs in the side of the rock face, through wide stone-laden streets, and towards a complex of pyramid structures, all interconnected with elevated walkways.

Each building had stairs chiseled into the sides of them and as K'Shai and R'chnt ascended them, she noticed that they were walking right past obvious patios to other Yautja's homes. K'Shai had almost reached the top of the structure before she realized she was quite literally in an apartment complex, for elite and elder Yautja males only.

The entire curving campus backed up to jungle and from the ledge on the building where she stood, there was a perfect view of the massive waterfalls in the distance. There was also an easy view down the entire length of the mountain and through the entire clan city, and as K'Shai dropped her eyes to take in the view, the city suddenly made sense to her.

From the top tier of the upper building, standing on a large flat granite-looking stone patio, K'Shai gazed from the sunwashed yellow gleam of the water mist beyond the treeline to the buildings along the top tier, noting everything from the open-sided gazebos on the top towers of three of the buildings, to the various chairs, helmets, weapons, and trophies that lined everyone's personal patio space.

'Aseigan hustled by, carrying supplies and food and weapons and trophies, while the elites of the clan looked on mostly towards her as she curiously surveyed them. On the tier below, K'Shai had an unobstructed view of the lattice work of buildings that served as housing to experienced hunters and the few Blooded workers that had earned their right to reside on that level.

The buildings were partially banked into the cliff wall on the back side, and the front of the structures all faced a massive, communal center complex of sparring arenas and cantinas. From above, she spotted a stream and additional small waterfalls trickling their way off the cliff and through the town, that she had not noticed before.

Even further down the grade of the mountain was the main level of the clan; the common areas for all. The flowing lattice of pyramid and hexagon shaped buildings that housed youngbloods and workers, were segregated by the center of the clan city. There, K'Shai could see the center stage, the main kehrite, and a vast open space that affronted an large open-air cantina, and looked rather like a gathering spot for spectators of whatever might take place on the stage.

On one side of the city, housing for youngbloods; on the other, housing for workers. Below them all, the 'aseigan residences, in a rocky pit almost completely devoid of the bright sunlight Yautja thrived in.

The entire city was simple, logical, fluid, efficient, and to the point. Like the Yautja people themselves, who valued actions over words and a language built more on subtle communication through pheromones and body posture over grandiose vocabulary, they way they lived was as equally streamlined.

It was functional and simple, filling the needs of the clan without being superfluous. The city blended into the terrain just as easily as a Yautja could camoflague themselves naturally, without the use of electronics. From her view atop the mountain, standing on R'chnt's patio, she could see the harmony of the clan and how it intertwined naturally with the planet around it.

Despite the advanced technology the Yautja possessed, they lived notably simply. There were no highway systems, no major infrastructures, no gridlocks, no Yautja enduring a grueling morning commute on packed subways. The people, their technology, even their world, all seemed to function together fluidly and it just _felt right_.

The Yautja lived by the simplest notion in the universe, kill or be killed. It was engrained so heavily into every fiber of their being that it drove them on a purely savage level, yet they were possessed of an intelligence and technology that reflected the history of their culture. They cultivated eons old wisdom that had been passed down from generation to generation and the culture had evolved to strictly adhere to honor bound codes that were absolute.

The Yautja, K'Shai had learned, preferred the simplest concepts; basic communication and unquestionable language. The strongest had the first rights, and anyone who dared question that right was welcome to try to challenge.

A growl, a simple look, mere body language could be enough to cause a weaker Yautja to shy away from a fight, and yet, despite their preference for basic language skills, the language also had more than fifty different words for Honor depending on context, past, present, reference to specific gods, or even gender.

They were a people of vast wisdom and extreme intelligence and they embraced so many notions that humans had long since shunned as brutal and unnecessary, yet somehow it all seemed to belnd together perfectly to support their entire way of life, allowing the hunters to walk the path of Honor they so treasured.

After allowing her time to survey what would be her new home, R'chnt turned and beckoned K'Shai inside to explore his accommodations in the clan city. He proudly stood next to neatly organized displays of skulls and weapons and trinkets of his personal hunts, along with a rack full of dozens of helmets and a variety of weapons.

"Wow!" K'Shai exclaimed. "So this is what a Yautja apartment looks like? I thought you kept all of your trophies aboard the ship."

K'Shai of course knew that R'chnt had been hunting the stars for the best trophies throughout the course of over three-hundred Earth years, which accounted for the comfortable, museum-like qualities of his chambers aboard his ship.

She never really thought about what his actual home on the planet would look like. Seeing his home now, she realized just how much it suited him. It was a Yautja bachelor's pad, since males never paired with females. His home was simple, fluid, efficient, and adorned with enough skulls to put any haunted house or gothic temple to shame.

Besides the skulls were the weapons, both trophy displays of confiscated prizes from his kills, and neatly organized racks of sparring and hunting weapons to serve a variety of purposes. As he showed her around the apartment, she did not turn a blind eye to how proudly he stood next to his displays, straightening his shoulders and back just a little extra bit as he raised his chin.

Watching him with a thin, entertained smile as he tried to subtly gloat over his proud treasures, she surveyed his home and listened to him tell brief tales of where or under what conditions he claimed his trophies, and what kinds of creatures they were once attached to.

Entering the home from the back patio, which had a single, throne-like with a computer display that could be pulled down like a periscope from the ceiling above, a locking door slid open to allow them into what K'Shai could only consider a kitchen. There was a private eating table, with a bench seat against the wall, and though the space in the area was large, there was limited counter area. The appearance of the kitchen looked more like a wet room or cleaning area for gutting and skinning prey, but it clearly served its purpose.

Through a short hallway with well-appointed display cases and a slight downward grade, there was a personal kehrite, also lined with prizes of hunts past. Between the kitchen and the kehrite, through another short corridor was the bedroom and private bathroom.

The bedroom faced an external wall with a view of the massive lake-sized river head that fed the waterfall. The breeze blew in, carrying with it the scents of the flowery trees and the clatter and growling of Yautja far below.

The apartment was large enough to give plenty of space to a lone hunter, while still being accommodating to guests, for sparring matches K'Shai presumed, although there were plenty of training areas out in the common areas, and even atop the buildings. It was an odd combination of foreign yet familiar; comfortable yet foreboding at the same time.

R'chnt paused, watching her survey the home he had brought her to. K'Shai slowly and efficiently stalked through the rooms and scanned the trophies and weapons. She would stop to closer scrutinize anything she found particularly appealing, but did not touch anything unless he specifically approved. K'Shai seemed instinctually aware that it was understood never to touch anyone's trophies or belongings, which pleased R'chnt.

Once she had her fill of the inside, and had already cleaned the offspring, K'Shai returned to the outer landing and surveyed the planet's terrain once again. She slid into his chair after a short while and opened her chest coverings, tucking A'ryin'di underneath so the child could suckle.

R'chnt watched her quietly, noting both the curious eyes casted up their way from the entire complex, and also her delicate scent in the air, ever so faintly announcing to him that she was pleasantly relaxed and comfortable. R'chnt clicked lightly, approvingly and sat on the ground next to his chair, not at all displeased that his mate was using it.

After some time, once A'ryin'di fell asleep again, K'Shai shifted in the throne like chair while R'chnt sat peacefully next to it. She noticed that he though he seemed far more at ease on his own patio on his home world than he ever seemed on Earth, he still remained alert and wary. He sat quietly, but guardedly.

He watched the onlookers from below casting their eyes up towards the open face of the building to survey the patio, but he made no attempt to display displeasure by the unhidden gazes.

Other Yautja, too, K'Shai noticed, were watching them from other levels of the slightly curved building. The entire front of the apartment-complex type of buildings were open and speckled with patios, on tiered levels all interconnect with steps carved right into the stone. It was completely possible to walk from R'chnt's unit all the way around to the farthest unit on the far end towards the main entrance of the clan city, without ever going down to the ground level at all. On the way there, one would pass dozens of other hunter's apartments.

K'Shai vaguely thought about the idea of the doors on the units, and how unnecessary they actually were. What fool would dare enter the home of a Blooded Elder Yautja without permission?

Her attention on the building and contemplation of the other Yautja who resided there waned as she refocused on the far distance, beyond the river head, just past the curve of the jungle of trees.

Her eyes scanned the edge of the horizon. From the elevated viewpoint, she was able to see slightly better beyond the trees, and barely made out what she had originally thought was a wall, although now she was not so sure it was.

The stone façade she could see looked almost as tall as the trees around it, and it did look as thought it might have a similar look to a building. Elsewhere in the distance, just peeking out beyond the tip of the trees, she could see the definite tip to a pyramid.

"R'chnt," she asked, shifting out of the throne to her feet, softly cradling her sleeping child. "What is that?"

He followed her eyes, which were affixed to a view far in the distance and responded succinctly.

"K'Shai, that is the mei'sa."

She turned and eyed him widely as a surprised smile took over her face.

"It is? It looks so far away. I thought it would be in the city or something? Is it behind a wall?"

"Of course, K'Shai." He replied and she eyed him in surprise again.

"Why?"

"For protection."

K'Shai pondered it for a moment.

"Protection from what?"

R'chnt chuckled deeply. "From dangers. K'Shai, you will see. You must be a part of the mei'sa, the same as you were on the atoll. Neh'rti will be expecting you there tomorrow, for now," he explained as he stood and extended his arm towards her. "Come."

She smiled widely and readily moved into him. R'chnt clamped his powerful, clawed hand down on her shoulder as she cradled the sleeping infant against her breast.

K'Shai walked steadily along with him, though she did stop from time to time to inspect anything that caught her attention more closely. He led her down the cliff side, taking a longer route down than they had up. Just as he guided her around the lengthiest routes through the jag d'atoll, and she learned her way through the mighty clan ship easily, he would teach her all the possible ways through the clan.

While Yautja would often scale the cliff wall itself, he knew she was not yet comfortable with vertical climbs, or climbing at all. She had displayed reservation and discomfort at the idea of just being high up on a ledge or building edge as it was.

R'chnt considered this as he took her around the clan towards the common level, via pathways that edged the side of the cliff. Oddly, she did not seem concerned about the height and rather embraced the view, stopping several times to observe it, which he obliged her to do.

As he watched her scanning the lands of his people, he assumed her trepidation about heights had more to do with the footing to get to them. K'Shai lacked claws on either her toes or fingers, and unlike the Yautja, she was far less agile when it came to climbing up trees or rocks. Her training would have to be handled carefully, and while K'Shai gazed over the city, he was already considering his agenda with her for tomorrow.

Once they had rounded through the upper level, descended a less steep decline which took them on a circumvented route along side the river, giving K'Shai ample opportunity to see the jungle and trees and survey the terrain, they followed a pathway between the worker's complex, which also drew in K'Shai's attention.

"What's in there?" She asked as they approached one building.

"It is the _hyk-vge_ ," he answered accordingly.

K'Shai fumbled at the word several times. "Huck-vee… _Hyak vehee._ "

"Hyk-vge," R'chnt repeated.

"Right, that. What does that mean?"

"It is for making weapons."

"Oh. What about in there? What are they doing?" She asked, indicating another rounded building with workers all coming to a pause to stare at her.

"They are repairing weapons." R'chnt informed.

"What's that?"

Again, she indicated another building and R'chnt clicked his tusks, lightly chittering with amusement.

"That is the _mei'tik-de_."

"Oh," K'Shai said with a little grin. She definitely knew the Yautja word for _bathroom_.

"What about that place? Are they making weapons, too?" She laughed lightly pointing to another building.

R'chnt pulled his mandibles back into a full smile and nodded his head softly. "This is where such work is done."

K'Shai shook her head slightly and shuffled the baby in her grip. She lightly whisked some of her long, beaded black hair out of her face and glanced to the dual suns far over head as she followed R'chnt through the massive clan city. Somehow, when she had learned that the Yautja lived in clans, and based off what R'chnt had said about the differences between their two worlds, she had expected, perhaps, that the home he was taking her to would be _smaller_ , primitive, simple.

Even despite the fact that they wildly advanced technology, space ships, and medical and scientific capabilities, the Yautja still impressed her with their brute-strength, simplistic, survival of the fittest mindset that somehow both empowered them and made them seem backwards.

Perhaps it was because of the nature of the Yautja, or the human presumption of them that remained lingering in her mind, that the Yautja were rather uncivilized and barbaric. She found the city R'chnt had taken her to be the exact opposite of any preconceived and unfounded notions she may have had.

The Kaunte Dar'een Clan City was massive and elaborate, richly appointed with all the luxuries that the Yautja could need or want or expect, and it was home to close one million Yautja of all castes.

As they walked on, R'chnt patiently took her through a breakdown of what all the buildings were for and their specific names as she gaped on in awe. The Yautja were not a frivolous species; everything had a purpose, but yet, the city was also elaborately adorned with trophies new and ancient, all proudly displaying the strong clan's heritage.

The pair rounded the curving arc of another large stone structure and K'Shai eyed a familiar view. The center stage of the Clan loomed in the distance, with its many skulls and bones along the lower façade and up the pillars that jutted off from both sides like twisted totems; straight up about two meters, then at an angle outward and upward into a pointed tip.

The entire stage and the pillars were carved with inscriptions about the Clan's power, the Honor of Hunters, and the punishments for dishonor. Seeing it up close, K'Shai had the ominous feeling it was most definitely a public gallows.

Beyond the stage, just off the rounded center of the city was the Stone Henge kehrite, currently unoccupied. Between the two structures and everywhere else in view, Yautja were gathering. Not far off from the center stage there was a very large cantina which had not only a covered seating area, but also a wide outdoor eating area. It was full.

Packed with adult males and females Yautja hunters, from youngblooded to Honored Elder, and a massive bonfire roaring in a circular fire pit right in the center of the stone floor. It seemed that the entire population of the city had now been deposited in the center of the square.

Further back, towards the worker's complex, K'Shai could just barely see another cantina, also packed full of what she assumed were worker Yautja who were privelaged enough to be near to the hunters and their business, but not so privelaged to join them. They looked on, though. In fact, as K'Shai surveyed her surroundings, she realized _everyone_ was looking on, towards her direction.

She eyed the crowd and noticed large, boisterous groupings of youngbloods well into their drink already, howling and barking at the 'aseigan who were tending to the fire and bringing large trays packed with a colorful variety of fruits and nuts and vegetables to buffet tables.

The youngsters never made physical contact with the 'aseigan, but they were clearly taking pleasure in tormenting them; it was no wonder why they were so skittish. It seemed terrorizing Yautja too weak to prove themselves as hunters was an enjoyable past time for some of the hunters.

K'Shai turned as a deep growling voice caught her attention. The Yautja clamped his hand down on R'chnt's shoulder, greeting him heartly.

The typical Yautja growl was simply a part of their natural vocalization range; there was subtle, but noticeable, differences between a pleasant tone and an aggressive tone. The most humans, such subtle differences might barely be apparent, but to a Yautja, the minor shifts in tone were as different as bellowing from purring.

As R'chnt greeted his friend back heartily, K'Shai's eyes dropped suddenly. She did not notice either of the towering males suddenly turn their gaze to her in response to her dramatic shift in eye contact and the very vocal gasp she elicited.

The large Yautja, equally muscled and fit and refined as R'cnt, only just slightly younger, was clad in heavy armor that had clearly seen equally as heavy battles. His brown-hued striped skin that was only visible in a few spots around his thighs and chest bore deep scars from scratches and punctures.

K'Shai's attention, however, had dropped to the level of the tall hunter's knees. His powerful hand clenched a studded chain and at the end of the chain was an animal quite unlike anything she had ever seen before.

It was a leash, clearly following at its master's side like a trained creature, but it was eyeing her up like dinner, offering an ominous growl as it sized her up. The animal had massive paw with talon-capped toes, it was built like a bear, had no fur, only a thick, pig-like skin and coarse quills sporadically around its body. Its head, though, was by far the most captivating and fearsome thing she had ever seen.

She wasn't sure if the animal was a dog, a bear, a dinosaur, or some combination of all of them with a little shark thrown in for good measure. Its elongated head had tiny eyes, massive nasal passages slit right into its bony head, and the animal's entire head was crowned in horns that could put any Texas longhorn bull to shame.

All of the creature's horns encompassed its long head entirely, making perfect ramming and impaling devices. Anything unlucky enough to meet with the creature's mouth would find itself clamped down between bear trap-like teeth, pointy, large, and deadly.

The animal surveyed her and the infant in her arms, immediately triggering a protective stance from K'Shai, uncertain if the thing might charge at them, trying to make a meal for itself. The thing was large enough to easily topple her down.

If it stood on its hind legs, it would most certainly be well taller than her. Looking at its powerful and compact body, she had no doubts that the thing was pure muscle, just like its master. It was obvious the pair spent a great deal of time hunting together.

"What is it?" K'Shai asked nervously as the animal paced at its master's knee and snarled lightly.

The Yautja handler of the beast chuckled, a deep and playful tone that obviously bothered R'chnt, who immediately stepped closer to her, nudging his heated abdomen into her shoulder.

"It is a _narrok_ , K'Shai." R'chnt answered before the other could puff out his chest enough to offer a response.

She did not respond, only tightened her grip on A'ryin'di and took R'chnt's approach as indication there was something to be concerned about, although she was not entirely certain if it was the animal or its handler, who she finally noticed had affixed his deeply golden eyes opn her without blinking.

Just as she eyed him back warily, the narrok snarled again and K'Shai instinctively withdrew with a flinch, tucking A'ryin'di close to her father without a moment's hesistation.

The Yautja, who had not stopped staring at K'Shai, chuckled a rumbled laugh and settled the animal, jiggling the chain that tethered it a little bit.

"Bi'lei will not injure you. Not unless I command her." He assured with a sort of suave gusto, speaking casually as if he was in complete control of the entire situation. "I will not send her on you, little female."

"Your mate, R'chnt; quite a unique creature." He added to R'chnt with a casual glance.

R'chnt poised firm and moved in front of K'Shai more fully; a deep and foreboding growl erupting from within his chest. K'Shai had thought she had heard the full range of vocalizations he was capable of, especially sounds that reflected his displeasure.

This sound conveyed something entirely new, and amplified after several tense moments when the other Yautja did not back down from his proud stance.

He merely shifted his gaze from K'Shai and the baby to R'chnt, before finally dropping his chin to acknowledge the animal once more. He yanked on her chain slightly and called for her to follow, turned and left.

K'Shai breathed slowly, becoming painfully aware that she was shaking from the encounter. She realized she was most disturbed by the ominous sound R'chnt continued to maintain until the other hunter was far enough away to satisfy him. He turned back to K'Shai and silenced as she eyed him warily, noting the tense posture he maintained until he finally caressed her face and pulled his upper tusks apart into a small smile.

They walked on, closer to the center stage and K'Shai returned to surveying the crowd, which went from bustling and packed to overly packed and far busier in the few moments she had stopped paying attention. It seemed that many in the crowd were watching her with piqued interest.

Suddenly feeling on the spot, she tucked A'ryin'di tighter to her chest, disturbing the baby just enough to rustle her from sleep. She clicked in response and then shifted her own position to return to sleep. K'Shai suddenly eyed Neh'rti and dozens of other females approaching; Blooded hunters and Honored Elders alike all hastily moving aside to let them through as they filtered into the crowd.

"R'chnt," K'Shai said in a whisper, wanting so much to tuck herself behind him once again as she drew near to him. "What's going on?"

He clicked softly and peered down at her. K'Shai's eyes barely made level with his sternum. She peered around them and them looked to him with a familiar hint of alarm in her eyes, her h'dui-se changing to anxiety.

Why she was nervous he was not sure. He gently clamped his hand on her shoulder, both supporting her lightly and subtly stopping her from trying to wedge herself behind him for protection. All eyes were upon them, and this was no time for K'Shai's natural shift towards fearfulness to kick in.

"K'Shai, it is _su-te_."

She paused and exhaled in exasperation; her nerves suddenly subsiding.

"Su-te? Everyone? The whole clan?" She questioned, looking around once again as the crowds of Yautja slowly began to settle on their haunches all over the Clan city.

R'chnt nodded silently and lowered his towering frame to the ground. K'Shai settled in next to him as W'rsa approached and joined them, sitting himself alongside R'chnt farther from K'Shai. Neh'rti took to the stage with the entire rest of the Elder council, composed of six females, both elders and younger apprentices, and three elder males.

K'Shai had been before them all under heavy scrutiny the very first time she had ever been aboard the jag d'atoll of the Clan. It was a nerve-wracking experience to be scrutinized by Neh'rti and the others, but especially Neh'rti. She was stern, proud, aggressive, and rigidly Yautja in all of her ways, and K'Shai had always known that Neh'rti's acceptance of her into the Clan was only because of R'chnt's powerful backing.

Over the many months she had spent aboard the atoll during her pregnancy, K'Shai had gotten to know all of the clan council. They each accepted her or tolerated her in their own ways, some more curious and gracious to her, some uncertain and apprehensive, but Neh'rti's position on K'Shai had not seemed to change at all.

Now, the council stood before every person in the clan, surveying them all with as much scrutiny as K'Shai was once under by them. For once, she did not feel like the center of attention, and was relieved to see mostly everyone's attention turned to Neh'rti as she stepped forward and addressed the Clan.

"Mighty hunters of the great Kaunte Dar'een," she started. "We have heard the call of the gods, we have answered to Cetanu. We have restored honor to our clan and to the Yautja people. We have prevailed, and proven that we not tolerate any dishonor. Those who disgrace our clan, the Yautja people, have been hunted and slaughtered. Those that hunted them have helped secure our honor before the gods.

This Clan has lost many great and mighty hunters. New blood will be honored with new ranks. New mates will soon be readying to grow their bloodlines. The blood of those that have died on the alien world is honored, and their heirs proud and strong.

The hunters that have returned, proud of the kills and scars they bear, have solidified this Clan before the gods. The skills and power of those who have hunted, bled, and lived and died, is amongst the honored heritage of our great Clan.

We have lost many, but we have proven our strength to all. Tomorrow begins _nau'chak-thwei'nk_. Today, we, as a Clan, honored hunters and honored Elders, youngblood and…" Neh'rti paused for a moment and glanced directly to K'Shai, who became suddenly painfully aware that everyone in the complex turned towards her.

"… our freshest Blooded hunters, who have all done this Clan honor and displayed with pride, the strong foundation of the heart of the Yautja people share in su-te and honor the gods again! As we approach our next breeding season, we will all face the coming changes and challenges with pride and strength. Tomorrow's nau'chak-thewi'nk will test your strength again, and secure ranks and positions between challengers and impress potential mates if you are so lucky."

The crowd rumbled a stifled sound somewhere between an eager growl and a laugh. K'Shai looked around at the Yautja, especially the males, who seemed particularly aroused by the idea of blood challenges for position and status following a celebratory meal.

"Yautja kin!" Neh'rti called finally. "Share in the honor and glory you have brought to the Clan!"

K'Shai had barely noticed during Neh'rti's speech that 'aseigan had delivered a massive plethora of fruits and nuts and vegetables and fish and meats. As the groups of Yautja that had been sitting all took to ther feet and dispersed towards the cantina and every other available space throughout the Clan square, K'Shai noticed large beasts strung up off the totems around the massive bon fire. 'Aseigan were working to skin and gut the animals right there in the middle of the clan, soaking the ground with blood while the creatures would slowly cook over the open flames.

The bonfire, surrounded by the totems with jagged horizontal beams coming off their wide pyramid shape bases, rose up like a rib cage around the fire pit. It was literally a massive grill, K'Shai thought.

Though the blood and entrails poured out of the creatures being carved, the entire place was quickly cleaned by other 'aseigan. Unwanted parts were tossed inot the fire, while larger chunks of the animals' innards, like internal organs, were collected up. K'Shai knew enough about the Yautja's "want not, waste not" system to know everything had a purpose.

As Yautja dispersed, K'Shai and R'chnt joined with W'rsa and a dozen others who all joined the elder council at the forefront of the group. Each Yautja filled their platters and mugs with food and K'Shai, brimming with a smile, joined in the celebratory feast. Yautja sat at tables or on the ground, on low walls, even on the roofs of the buildings, which they climbed up to.

They were on balconies of the buildings near by and packed into the stony streets between the structures, or on the walkways that connected building to building far above the ground.

The chatter, clicking, rumbling, and trilling of thousands of Yautja voices rising up through the Clan city eventually became like background noise as K'Shai tuned in completely to the conversation at her table. She tucked up against R'chnt, resting her hands on him, and he returned the gesture in kind. She listened to stories that the others had to share, about their own experiences on Earth.

Each hunter, young and elder alike, had their own version of events, their "one great" story of the whole hunt. Each one had that one kill that would be most memorable; each one had their own great scar they could not wait to tell the tale of to another.

Though R'chnt did not offer up his own tale, everyone likely knew it anyway, he was gracious when the conversation turned towards him and what was certainly his most _memorable_ kill of the entire hunt. He was even of lifted spirits enough to joke about the kill and his injury, and make light of the whole event as if it is was nothing at all.

Sometimes the stories got back round to her, and she added in what she could, though she felt her stories rather lacking in sheer enthusiasm over the Yautja way. Each one quieted down to let her speak, and tell her tales, and she was grateful for that at least. As she continued to look around during the meal, she did notice that all of the Yautja seemed utterly jovial.

She had of course seen them happily drinking themselves into a stupor on alcoholic cn'tlip before, but there was something much more passionate about the first su-te back home. The Yautja were _ecstatic_. They talked with vigor and pride of the battles they endured in the recent past, and of the challenges they would endure the following rotation.

Nau'chak-thwei'nk was a blood-rite to secure status and rank. It was not a death challenge; rather a formal and clan supervised challenge between two generally similarly-matched Yautja each looking to vie for an escalated position. Sometimes, a younger, lesser ranked challenger would take on a higher ranked Yautja for his status, and depending on the circumstances of that particular challenge, it could likely be to the death. For now, though, no Yautja seemed concerned about the blood promised to be shed on the following rotation. They were celebrating.

Su-te was not just a community meal time; it was a feast, a celebration, a prayer session and story time all in one. K'Shai had experienced only a few of them on the atoll, with far less in attendance. Some of them were in the mei'sa, with all the females and their offspring gathering. Some took place in the main cantinas, especially after the hunters had begun to return in large numbers.

Despite their aggressive ways, the Yautja were equally as social as humans, and one of the few things the two species shared in common was bringing groups together over a meal. K'Shai had simply never imagined that the entire clan would participate in su-te on the scale she was witnessing.

K'Shai sat amongst the group of elders for so long that she lost track of time. A'ryin'di slept through most of the meal and the chatter, and only awoke when songs and music filled the air, at which point, K'Shai pulled away from the warm comfort of R'chnt and retreated to a table of females, two of whom had suckling offspring on their breast.

K'Shai had no reservations at all of nursing A'ryin'di in R'chnt's company, but being comfortable with revealing nudity around other males was still something she was not entirely confident about. It was just as uncomfortable for her to feed her offspring in public as it was to share the soaking pools with males, although she knew Yautja did not share the same taboos as her human culture demanded.

As the festivities continued on, K'Shai took a clear note of the fact that "night" never actually came. When she arrived on the world, she naturally assumed it was midday because the suns were both well above her head. As she watched them move across the sky during the entire course of the planet's rotation, she noticed that they both moved quite separately and at different trajectories.

While the hours passed on and the suns did lower in the sky, one finally dropping out of sight below the horizon sending beautiful rays of familiar ambers and pinks through the clouds, the other one never quite set.

The night time light changed with the absence of one sun, but the sky never turned to darkness. As the second sun lowered just below the horizon, creating a few Earth hours' worth of what the Yautja would call night, there was always a subtle twilight kind of light.

It seemed dusk light was the darkest the Yautja home world would get; a stark contrast to the dark ambiance of the jag d'atoll she had gotten used to.

As R'chnt obliged her to return to his home when she was too tired to remain awake anymore, she commented to him that she was sure she would not be able to rest with it so light.

"Does it ever get dark on your world?"

"Not as on Earth, no, K'Shai." He said.

"Well, the view is still amazing." She added in, casting her eyes again to the moons fully visible with their sparkling rings glistening brightly in the twilight.

The sounds of the jungle echoed loudly as the world turned into its version of night, and the music and rumbling clicking chatter of the Yautja all over the clan city echoed up through the massive canyon-like bed the Clan city was set in.

K'Shai focused on the sounds of the water fall for a moment before tuning back in to the animal calls from the jungle trees, shifting the baby in her grip and glancing up again to the moons before stepping back into R'chnt's home and making her way to the bedroom.

She set the baby in her bassonette, which an 'aseigan brought up apparently while they were at the festivities, along with additional food, which K'Shai gratefully acknowledged with a grin to R'chnt.

"In case you get hungry." He said as he watched her disrobe and survey the oval-walled room one more time.

She stopped by the glass-less window and looked out to the common area below, the busy clan square far below, the waterfalls to the right in the far distance, and the adjoined buildings curving their way out of sight to her left. The sounds of nothing less than a party echoed up enthusiastically, but it did not stop her from falling asleep after all.


	19. Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

She heard rumbling that woke her from her sleep. She was sure it could have been the sinister sound of a horde of the _kainde amedha_ approaching, or maybe it was gunfire. It sounded like cannons.

There was a war; she remembered that well. Suddenly worry for A'ryin'di popped into her mind as a flicker of R'chnt also flashed in an instant. She opened her eyes with a soft gasp, feeling her body flush and her heart speed up. It was dark, but she remembered then where she was. She was in R'chnt's…. no, she was in _her_ home.

Given it was twilight outside when she went to bed and it seemed even darker now, she had no idea how long she had been asleep. R'chnt was standing, pacing softly, clearly unconcerned by the sounds of cannons, or fireworks, filling the air. As K'Shai focused her eyes, she noticed the bassonette was empty.

Barely shifting so as not to disturb him, she turned just enough to see that he was cradling his child, mimicking her soft swaying around the room to help soothe A'ryin'di, who was clicking a trill purr at her father's touch. K'Shai pressed her lips together in a pleased smile and watched them for a fraction of a second before flickering lights from outside the window caught her attention.

The rumbling started up again and lights flickered. K'Shai turned fully towards the window and noticed ominous gray clouds illuminated with flickering purplish bolts of electricity.

"She awoke before you," R'chnt said to her with a purr as he cradled his child. K'Shai smiled at him, half astonished, completely delighted.

He had never voluntary picked up the baby since she had slipped into his hands upon her birth. K'Shai wasn't sure if he was just so unaccustomed to handling an infant that he didn't think he had the right to without her permission, or if he was simply uncomfortable with the parenthood she had determinedly sprung upon him.

Either way, she was glad to see him caring for his child. Despite his insistence that he was no father and that nurturing behaviours were not part of his existence, in the flickering purple flashes filling the room, he looked completely relaxed and natural crading an infant barely the size of his forearm.

She slid out of the bed and looked on to the downpour beyond the sloping side wall of the pyramid-shaped building, watching the storm rage for a moment before she retrieved the baby.

"I'm sure she needs to nurse," K'Shai informed.

She settled back on the bed, quietly humming absent-mindedly while R'chnt gathered and donned armor and weapons.

"You are learning our songs well," he noted.

She looked at him with a thin smile, letting the tune to the hymn she had learned during the celebration last night drift away.

"Heading out?" She asked him idly.

He nodded. "To spar."

She glanced again to the window as lightning and thunder raged and rain that mimicked any tropical storm.

"Oh," she said quietly. "Inside, I assume?"

"There is a kehrite on the top level, I will be there."

She glanced out the window again, reconfirming the intense storm. "You spar outside in this kind of weather!?"

He looked at her quizzically, but thought about it for a moment. He was not sure why, but he had observed many times that not only K'Shai, but all humans, seemed to have a natural desire to avoid rain; just one of the numerous unusual behaviors they exhibit.

"Join me," he invited.

She shot him a wide-eyed look and considered him for a moment before smiling widely.

"Maybe in a while, after this storm passes through. This storm is about as tough as any Yautja!"

He nodded deeply and stepped over to the pair, whisking his long talons gently over the tender skin of his infant child before sweeping K'Shai's face, brushing some of her beaded locks aside as he cupped his hand around her chin fully.

"I don't want to take her out in this," she added in, shifting A'ryi'ndi slightly. "But I'll join you later, you don't want to keep the others waiting."

R'chnt straightened his back, shifted his grip on a sparring staff in his other hand and clicked in amusement.

"They wait. Only I say begin."

K'Shai smiled, then suddenly realized exactly what he meant.

"You mean, they've been waiting for you this whole time?"

He tipped his head sideways into a curious nod, dismissing her surprise as she glanced one more time to the angry storm raging outside.

"I am Leader," he clarified absolutely to clear up any confusion she might have had.

His group had been waiting as they should be, for his appearance, knowing far better than to begin a spar without him. His child was restless and his mate was resting, his attention for the time being was needed elsewhere. Now that K'Shai was awake and the infant was tended to, he turned and headed out.

K'Shai occupied her time inside R'chnt's home, evaluating trophies and weapons without touching, and listening to the sounds of the storm which slowly dwindled away. Finally, once the rain had stopped completely, she headed out onto the patio at the front of the building, taking in the simply spectacular series of rainbows that filled the sky as the suns emerged through the slate-gray clouds.

The entire sky looked as if it was painted in glittering pastel colors. Unlike the Earthly phenomenon, which arced across the sky, the Yautja version of a rainbow simply filled the entire sky. It was like looking up and through a piece of glistening stained glass.

The fresh smells that hit her seemed to soak into her very pores. She shut her eyes and breathed deeply, catching the scents of fresh fallen rain and all the flowering trees of the jungle nearby. She surveyed the grounds between the connected complex of buildings.

The terrace was rather full of sopping wet and barely clad Yautja who had clearly also not given the storm any thought.

They were all going about their business, and only a few nearby really even glanced her way once she appeared.

She stepped towards the edge of the patio with reservation; it was easily a sixty foot drop to the terrace below. She glanced from the stone slab edge of the massive terrace between the building, across the grassy lawns, and backup along the scaling wall of the complex R'chnt lived in, scanning the staggered patios and stairs that protruded from the sloped side before her gaze shifted up towards the sound of echoing weapons clanging against each other.

Unable to see all the way up to the castle- tower-like spire where the kehrite was, K'Shai soon headed up a stone slab set of stairs towards the top.

The stairs grew decidedly narrower and steeper as she neared the large gazebo-like fighting platform, but she could see well enough into it from where she was while she decided if she wanted to tackle the steeple ascending stairs the remainder of the way. The kehrite above her head had no walls, but it was capped in a spire, atop which sat a massive skull of a beast she had not yet learned the name for.

She could see four or, perhaps five, Yautja working their way around the sparring space as they clanked their weapons together. Sounds in the distance echoed up from time to time, and she assumed it was the roar of entertained Yautja probably still partying from the night before.

K'Shai contemplating ascending to the top of the stairwell again, focusing back on the view she had into the kehrite, where she could just see R'chnt's elbow as he held his ground for a moment, near the open edge of the arena.

Set up on a round podium, with only a narrow stairwell etched into the side that went practically straight up more like a ladder, the kehrite was clearly not intended for safety.

One slip up, and an unlucky Yautja could find his way plummeting a solid five meters to the base of the landing below. Hardly enough to damage a full grown Yautja, but certainly enough to gain a few laughs from one's opponents and bruise an ego or two. She assumed that was rather the point.

A little _harmless fun_ for the Yautja was only more fun when someone got bloodied and embarrassed. If the unlucky warrior continued on his slide off the narrow landing under the kehrite, he might end up scaling toes up towards the next landing, which was a walkway between buildings easily another thirty meters down.

That, K'Shai thought, might inflict a bit more damage, and the height was more than enough to cause her pause and reconsider scaling up to the top at all.

While she remained on the widest portion of the stairs before they narrowed up to the kehrite, she scanned the valley once again, realizing the spectacular view she was suddenly treated to, especially as the sky continued its pastel prismatic show.

Her presence did not take long to go unnoticed and as R'chnt called to her and she looked up, her eyes settled onto five Yautja all staring down at her, probably wondering what she was looking at, and whether or not she was going to ascend the rest of the way.

Sensing her hesitation, and knowing full well she had demonstrated uneasiness around heights, specifically edges, R'chnt dismissed himself from the group for a moment and scaled down the stairs out of the kehrite.

He could have just as well jumped, or climbed down the vertical wall, using the small grip holes that littered the stone slabs for just that purpose, but he knew K'Shai lacked the proper talons for such climbing and her bones were far too weak to handle a jump of that height. She watched him climb down the stairs, perhaps gauging how to navigate them herself – not an easy task while carrying a child.

"Come, K'Shai," he invited and extended his hand towards her, which she readily accepted.

R'chnt pulled his shoulders back and stood tall as his mate moved to him. She scanned his armor and body, noting minor evidence that he had been struck several times during his spar. It was a _good spar_ , and the blood slowly leaking from nothing more than minor scathes was evidence of that. The bruises and slashes on his opponents, on the other hand, displayed proof that he was winning.

K'Shai deposited the infant into his offering grip and with another gesture of his free hand, she followed his indication to climb into the tower with the other four warriors he had been enjoying sparring with.

He followed her up promptly, easily gliding up the stairs with one arm delicately occupied and K'Shai, as she tended to do frequently, stopped nearly immediately into the kehrite and studied her surroundings.

The tower was high; _scary high_. She never realized just how acrophobic she was until she met someone with a propensity for picking the highest, _and narrowest_ , possible place to perch. R'chnt was perfectly content sitting or even crouching, well balanced over his solid feet, on edges of buildings six stories high.

She had thought perhaps that was as high as he would reasonably go, and it wasn't so bad when she was on the solid footing of the rooftop, but when the opportunity arose for him to climb to a tiny ledge ten, twelve, or thirty stories above the ground, he did it just as readily, and would look quizzically at her as he tried to figure out why she was unwilling to join him.

From all that she saw so far on the homeworld of the Yautja people, there was no lack of _anything_ high to climb to.

The Yautja, she had decided, were part spider, part cat, and completely without any sense of self-preservation at all. They could cling onto nearly any surface they could dig their talons into just a little, they could balance on a tight wire wearing full body armor, and since they could jump or fall from great heights without serious, or any, injury, they had no trepidations about climbing up to them in the first place.

The kehrite on the tower was smaller than most of the other ones she had seen. With five full grown and armored warriors in it, even without walls, the open fighting space seemed a little tight. It was obvious the gathering of elites and elders were practicing highly developed techniques.

The weapons they carried, all the same type of sparring staff, and the ornamentations around the kehrite, not to mention the fact that it was literally the highest point in the whole Clan all implied that it was for a specific purpose, for use by a very small and select group of the C'lan's highest elites.

K'Shai retrieved A'ryin'di from R'chnt and gazed at the incredible view off the kehrite tower.

The others watched her in silence as R'chnt paced near to her like a lion on patrol, pointedly making his case without a word. K'Shai scanned the Clan city from the highest possible vantage point.

She could see clear across to the horizon, far above the trees, across the wide river and massive falls, where her eyes curiously scanned along the wall and pyramid structure she had seen of the mei'sa.

From what she could tell so far above the ground, the mei'sa was a massive complex far larger than she had realized.

The wall around it was simply massive, and the campus of buildings, all interconnected in the same style as the buildings within the Clan city, covered a large section of ground, but were surrounded on every side by a massive expanse of jungle and fields, all within the walls. K'Shai felt her heartbeat feverishly as she surveyed the mei'sa.

Although the mei'sa on the Clan ship was also separated by levels and doors, and adult males were not welcome, somehow, it still felt different; _connected_ to the rest of the Clan. Looking now upon the territory of the mei'sa, so vast she could not see the other side of the wall that kept it cut off from the rest of the Clan's territory, it seemed so separated; so ominous.

It was not, nor could it be, home. Nothing about it felt right, yet she knew that she would be required to adapt to life in the mei'sa as she had on the ship.

It was one thing, she thought, to be part of the mei'sa on the atoll. Without R'chnt aboard, it was at least company, and she had learned much from the females. However, now that she and R'chnt were together and their daughter born, she was not about to spend her life cut off from him except for breeding season.

A'ryin'di had been born barley over one Earth week ago, and already it was evident R'chnt was learning the ropes of becoming a capable and protective father. The idea of being separated from him, having the baby grow up without ever really knowing her father, was so foreign, so _unnatural_ to her.

She eyed the mei'sa like it was a vile thing, certain that she would never truly be a part of it. She had gone through enough with the females just aboard the Clan ship. She decided she did not need the harassment and difficulties from the females in the mei'sa that had not yet met her, or more chastising remarks about her small and inferior baby fit to be nothing more than 'aseigan.

R'chnt watched her survey the mei'sa territory quietly. Her eyes locked onto it as she contemplated it curiously. She would adjust to her new role and new life easily, he was certain. He knew she was reluctant to leave his side, and in quiet truth, he was equally as reluctant to see her leave it.

Having his mate with him, available to him, and in need of him at all times was unlike anything he had ever expected or imagined. Having his child with him, though completely unnatural, was something he was learning to adapt to.

K'Shai had adjusted to the mei'sa on the atoll and she would adjust to life as a female Yautja on the homeworld. She would also, he knew, split her time with being with him while he returned to his typical duties and business between hunts.

K'Shai had much to learn still, but he clicked proudly as he watched her survey the scope of the mei'sa, knowing she would learn it all well.

"It's more beautiful than I realized," K'Shai muttered after she had absorbed the full scope of the lands of the mei'sa.

She grimaced, and eyed R'chnt, somewhat annoyed with herself that she even admitted that much aloud.

"So that's where…" she had started to say, but her attention turned again to the roaring sounds that began echoing up from the city so far below once again.

The others were drawn back to action by the sound, and all started exiting the kehrite through whatever means they preferred, each one nodding to the others before dismissing himself.

"What is going on?"

"Come, K'Shai," R'chnt directed her, extending his arm. "It is time for _nau'chak-thwei'nk._ The trials have begun."

She took a deep breath and followed where he led. They descended off the platform below the kehrite tower, scaled down the stairs embedded into the angled slope of the pyramid and migrated down the tiered mountain side until the finally entered within sight of the stone-hedge kehrite at the center of the clan. It was _packed._

As they drew closer, the sounds of the crowd, cheering like they were at a concert, grew louder and louder. Once they entered the perimeter of the crowd and pushed down an aisle, K'Shai had found the roaring sounds of the spectators, and their combined musk overpowering.

She and R'chnt worked their way through the raging crowd, which was continually getting bigger as more hunters filed into the arena. Yautja moved aside to let R'chnt, who postured defensively and glared powerfully as he moved through the crowded aisles, pass through, with K'Shai just inches before him, baby cradled tightly in her arms.

She could feel her nerves fray immediately, just from being in the crowd of hunters. The gathering was rumbling and stomping so hard the ground vibrated below her feet, and the bass levels of their husky voices made her body tremble.

The musk they emitted- charged with adrenaline and testosterone – nearly choked her.

She had realized some time ago that she had become more sensitive to the natural h'dui'se of the Yautja body as her pregnancy had continued on. She suddenly realized the effects lingered in her, almost as if her body was simply _infused_ with Yautja-ness from carrying a halfblood baby.

It was one of many new sensations to get used, she quietly thought as she was directed by R'chnt towards a clearer section of bleacher- like rows. They joined several dozen other elders and elites in the less crowded section and as K'Shai looked around from the elevated perch, it struck her; she was in a stadium and this was a sporting event.

In the stage-like arena, well in view from high up the sloping sides of the stonehenge style coliseum, two young hunters stepped into the ring.

Neh'rti was positioned front and center on one end of the circular space, flanked by the female members of the ruling council and a dozen other females, all of whom flickered their eyes towards K'Shai for a fraction of a moment before turning and muttering amongst one another until they returned their focus to the youngbloods entering the ring.

On the other end of the arena, the male members of the ruling council were standing, watching keenly. With them, the leader of the hunting pack the two youngsters belonged to watched over his students keenly as they each vied for improved positions.

K'Shai listened to the call for the challenge to begin; a bellowing roar from both competitors as they moved carefully and tactfully around the circular elevated platform that was the kehrite. Yautja standing in the pit area looked up to see the fight, all banging on the edge of the arena's floor, howling and chanting. As the two hunters moved into each other, the chant from the spectators sounded almost like music.

"Will they be fighting to the death?" She asked R'chnt.

"No, K'Shai." He said casually. "These are trials only, to prove a hunter's worth."

"The fights will be for positions in hunting packs; youngsters trying to impress a new Leader if their's has been killed, or show they are ready for a new position in the Clan or in their Leader's presence." Another added in.

She nodded understanding.

"Will you have such trials?" She asked to R'chnt again, knowing full well he had lost at least four of his own hunting pack in the war.

He nodded briskly. "I will. Later. Lower packs fight first."

"How long do these trials last?"

"As long as they must, my K'Shai. There will be many now that so many have been lost and new positions must be claimed." R'chnt answered back just before a roar piped up from the crowd and all of their eyes cast towards the arena once again.

As she scanned the two competitors, locked arm in arm into each other like two buck elks with their racks intertwined, each one trying to out-muscle the other, K'Shai could tell immediately that though both young, one of the two hunters was clearly a little older.

He was a bit larger, carried himself a bit more confident than his opponent and had just a bit more muscle tone rippling through his barely clad body. The younger opponent dug his claws into the grated floor, clearly trying to get a better grip as the larger Yautja buckled down and pushed.

Each bellowed out a throaty challenge before they finally both broke apart with a snap, ending the stand off. Each challenger moved in cat-like circles, pacing the arena while the crowd continued their chant.

Suddenly, the smaller one, getting on a quick offensive, lunged forward and clearly caught his larger opponent off guard with a change of trajectory. The smaller male, instead of charging forward like a linebacker, hit the ground and slid towards his opponent's ankles.

As the bigger Yautja sprung up off the ground, with obvious intentions of landing sideways in a safe spot, the youngster headed him off from the ground. The smaller Yautja reached his body to an impressive new length, clearly anticipating what his opponent would try to do. He managed to grab his opponent's ankle mid air and pulled him down hard to the plated floor.

The already standing crowd bellowed in delight as the first spattering of blood leaked onto the floor of the kehrite and down the side into the spectators. The larger Yautja had clearly cracked his head from the hard fall.

Though bleeding, it was apparently not a significant injury.

The opponent jumped up quickly and was met with an immediate uppercut from the younger Yautja, who had sprung up almost too quickly for K'Shai to even follow. With another quick strike, the bigger hunter was down again, landing hard on his side and halfway sliding out of the arena.

K'Shai noticed a sudden pause from the crowd as they watched, clearly on edge wondering what would happen next to the down hunter. K'Shai watched with wide eyed interest, feeling the vibe from the crowd that they were ready to explode in either cheers or jeers.

She suddenly felt as if she was at a sports car race and the crowd was simply waiting for a wreck to happen; they didn't care who wrecked what, but they just wanted it to happen.

In a flicker of a moment, the spry younger hunter leapt over and finished the job. He grappled the downed opponent by the ankles as he clearly dug his claws into the side of the platform to stop from sliding completely off.

With a quick lift, like he was caber tossing in a Highland game, the smaller hunter used a combination of strength and leverage, grappled the larger one by the angles and lifted him heels-up right out of the arena completely. He clattered into the crowd below to a resounding bellow of roars and howls.

"I guess he's out." K'Shai said with a laugh.

"A fighter must stay in the kehrite to remain a challenger, or forfeit the match." R'chnt told her over the howls and jeers.

"He can't just climb back in and go to round two?" She asked, causing a rumbling chuckle from the other elders who had heard her.

R'chnt remained silent, but he did not need to answer; she had clearly been given the answer. He tipped his head to her and gave her a one-tusk in the air smile; a half grin that had inflictions that covered everything froma sneer to an _aren't you cute_ type of look, depending on the body posture and facial expression that supported it.

This time, K'Shai had the rather blushing feeling she fell into the latter, but she smiled back to R'chnt all the same and nudged her body playfully into his.

She watched battled after battle, grateful for the fact that for once she was not the center of attention. While many of the fights were fairly light-hearted and between sparring pairs of two young hunters vying for the same rank or position, or else between a youngster and a more experienced hunter simply to test if they were strong enough to even earn a place in a particular hunting group at all, the crowd still clearly lusted for blood.

Some of the battles ended quickly; some took longer. Some ended with a bruised ego; some ended in broken bones. Either way, blood was most definitely shed.

As the hours slowly ticked on the fights grew more intense. K'Shai found herself transfixed by the spectacle of it all, even howling and rooting along, feeling the lifted by the energy of the crowd. She needed to pee, but ignored her bladder entirely.

'Aseigan made their way through every so often with platters of food, which they placed on pedestals near the ends of the aisles. She noticed that only the particular section she was in with R'chnt had such pedestals and received such service; the rest of the crowd, if they wanted to eat had to leave and get their own food at one of the many cantinas in the Clan, and miss their sports show.

It was not until A'ryin'di fussed enough to let K'Shai know she was hungry and in need of cleaning that she finally departed from R'chnt with a kiss on his cheek, drawing in wildly curious gazes from everyone around them.

He remained behind in the bleacher section as K'Shai made her way to a bathroom and found a small group of females that she recognized from the shipside mei'sa.

She joined them and nursed A'ryn'di, but not before catching an 'aseigan with a platter of fruits scurrying past so she could get something to munch on while she cared for the baby and listened to the conversation around her.

The females were discussing some of the fighters with about as much enthusiastic interest as a giddy group of school girls ranking the boys in the class.

She smiled as she listened, realizing that the females had a measurement system that was not at all different than anything K'Shai knew. For a moment, her mind flickered to her life in high school; how different it all was before the Earth was destroyed, before its population was decimated, before its way of life was changed completely.

She snapped back into the conversation before her mind flooded with sadistic images of hordes of writing black serpentine exoskeletons and metallic teeth; just as she realized her heart was speeding up and her hair stood on end and her skin felt suddenly clammy.

"K'Shai, are you not going to go remain in the mei'sa?" One of the females finally asked.

She shifted her gaze, looking through the gaggle of onlookers before she finally saw them.

"What?" She stammered.

"You really are going to keep your offspring out of the mei'sa? Neh'rti will not…"

K'Shai, soured, barked back interrupting. "It's only a few days. It's fine. This is how humans do things; it works for us. Neh'rti knows that this is what I want."

Clicking and trilling, the females expressed their disagreement. One of them snapped quite deliberately at K'Shai with a biting tone.

"Do you not realize we are not human and you are not on _Herth_."

Glaring, K'Shai did not respond. Her eyes shifted to the backs of some males not too far away, who were all watching the fights. She scanned them and noticed the Yautja with the narrok she had met the day before.

She realized she knew the dog's name and not its master's, but as she watched him glancing towards her, she could not help but feel like he was sizing her up.

Uncomfortable under the unbreaking gaze of the mighty Yautja, K'Shai dismissed herself again, casually from the females and strode confidently back to where she had left R'chnt's company, without any regard to the male who eyed her up.

She glanced around the packed arena, full of howling spectators cheering on their barely-clad gladiators, calling for blood from all of them. She spotted W'rsa nearby, just a few rows down from them and in the same section.

She also noticed Sar'uch-de nearby, a gathering of familiar females in their own section, watching with various levels of interest depending on the presence of the males competing, and L'ruch far on the other side amongst other elder workers who had earned their right to enjoy the spectacle of the hunters sparring, from the lowest level on the farthest edge away from Neh'rti's own elevated, throne-like platform.

The irony K'Shai noted, was that humans at events tended to pay the most to be in the pit seats, while for the Yautja, those seats were for the lowest ranked and lesser castes. Higher ranked hunters and the Honored Elites and Elders all had viewing positions farther up in the rows, which allowed them better views of the arena without the addition of being splattered with blood, sweat, and saliva.

The fights continued on without end and the crowd seemed equally endless in their needs to see them. Match after match, hunter after hunter, matters of who hunted under what Leader, and what position they filled were settled in blood-splattered agreements.

Whatever Leader supervised each matter as it applied to him all seemed satisfied by the results without question. None of the fighters were killed, but a few suffered bone-breaking injuries. Every one of them left the arena either willingly or by being thrown out of it, with bruises and gashes.

The winners seemed completely satisfied; the losers appeared rightfully ashamed. K'Shai noticed how either party almost always gazed around at the females watching them, clearly either hoping they were impressed or concerned they were not.

When K'Shai had her fill of the day's activities, R'chnt escorted her to his home and remained there while she slept and ate.

He kept company with four other Elders out on the patio throughout the entire rest of the rotation and only joined K'Shai in the bedroom right as the first of the two suns, the last one to set, was rising back up after its very brief drop past the horizon.

K'Shai joined him again in the bleachers to watch fights, realizing that they had gone on without end throughout the entire rotation.

The only interruption to the fights were prayer and _su-te_ , which K'Shai and R'chnt observed. As the rotations passed, K'Shai found the routine to be the same. The challenges continued on in the main kehrite without end.

The fights gradually grew more involved and intense as youngbloods, having sorted out their new positions and rights and status, gave way to the experienced hunters. Higher hunters who were vieing against each other for improved positions, trying to impress new Leaders, or even pitting for position as second in a hunting pack, fought far more vigorously. They inflicted severe damage to one another, and the fights, K'Shai noticed, were far less likely to end with someone being ejected from the arena.

Each opponent seemed to have their own command of the kehrite's limited fighting space, and used it accordingly. K'Shai realized that the only true _rule_ was not to leave the kehrite for any reason. This left the field wide open for how each hunter fought, and the more experienced fighters – especially the losing ones- were not opposed to pulling out a blade unexpectedly to try to catch their better off guard.

"Isn't that …. _cheating?_ " K'Shai asked of R'chnt during one of the spectacles.

"Each hunter must defend for themselves. If they get injured because their opponent does something unexpected, it is their own fault."

K'Shai smirked at him and drew her lips back into a wide grin.

"W'rsa, did you have to fight like that for your place?" She asked of him later, over a meal in the main cantina during dinner.

"Of course, K'Shai. It is how a place is earned." He responded with a deep nod of his powerful, ridged head.

"It seems like it never ends. Everyone seems to have to fight for their place all the time." K'Shai observed.

"My K'Shai, as do you." R'chnt responded simply.

She fell silent for a moment and surveyed him, and glanced about the table to the Yautja guardedly eating their meals.

Although R'chnt would willingly offer her food from his plate and drink from his canteen, bring her food directly, or allow her to snack off his plate without concern, she did notice that all Yautja, including him, had a way of sort of hovering over their platters with an aggressive glare and keen awareness of what was going on around them.

Like a lion eating a meal while a hyena paced nearby, the Yautja seemed to always be wary of who was near them and how close they were, as if they were directly threatened.

K'Shai thought about it all for a moment. Everything about the Yautja, all of them, always came with an aura of rigid alertness.

R'chnt was typically a light sleeper, and would spring to alarm immediately as if a threat was always around him. Though he was composed, powerful, and well experienced, he still maintained a certain level of ever—ready tension all the time, except for when he was totally relaxed in her quiet company when he allowed himself to purr and rest at complete ease.

Every time any Yautja was around another, _especially_ when a male was around a female, the level of alert defensiveness was so thick it was practically tangible.

The Yautja truly did always fight for their positions; always show wariness that what they had might be taken away, challenged, by any young up and comer who thought they could best a superior. Although the regulated spars that had been taking place all week were not death challenges, the Yautja still were all on guard.

K'Shai realized that in her own way, she was, as R'chnt had said, fighting for her position. She cast her eyes around the cantina and felt herself flicking her gaze towards Neh'rti's table.

She had been keeping her eyes carefully away from Neh'rti, S'ridi, and the table of females just across her left shoulder. Even with her gaze turned away, A'ryin'di cradled warmly against her chest, K'Shai could feel the casted glances from the table.

K'Shai was fighting for her place at R'chnt's side, under protest from Neh'rti herself. She swallowed and dropped her gaze to the sleeping baby in her arms, as she instinctively nudged into R'chnt a little more when her nerves suddenly tingled while she thought of the conversation with S'ridi earlier that day.

Each day, K'Shai took some time to meet with S'ridi and the other females. Although none with suckling infants were out of the mei'sa, it was still comforting to K'Shai to nurse her own offspring in the company of the females. She was grateful for S'ridi's willing friendship, but each day, the conversation was also the same; a reminder to K'Shai that her place was in the mei'sa with the child.

"It is proper. It is expected. Females do not…" she began factually, but K'Shai cut her off with an annoyed sigh.

"We're doing just fine. R'chnt is perfectly content with the baby in his home. He's been an excellent father. He hold her. He watches over her. Over both of us." She said informatively.

"The baby's too young to know the difference and we're not causing any problems. None of the males care that we are here. They are all just… _curious_ about us. They don't mind us at all. They think it's just all so… _unusual_ , but they are fine. Everything is fine. S'ridi, I know what I'm doing."

"I do. It's fine." She added in emphatically, just to be extra convincing.

S'ridi flared her tusks. A Yautja with flared tusks could mean any number of things. Technically, K'Shai observed, even the simple smiles R'chnt offered her frequently, were nothing more than flared tusks.

To a human who didn't know better, the gesture could be considered hostile. To the Yautja, the same was true for K'Shai's own smile; pulling the lips back to expose the teeth, to them, was no different than a dog curling its lips aggressively.

It took time and understanding before each was able to interpret the look of the other, and understand its context. The intention of any Yautja facial expression was backed up always by a combination of body posture and subtle changes in the expressions of the eyes, brow ridges, and cheeks.

The look on S'ridi's face was currently somewhere between a sneer and a disappointed grin.

K'Shai, reading the look, immediately changed her posture, sighed again, and added in with a forced agreement.

"I have seen the mei'sa from the view on the top of the mountain. I _am_ curious to see it from the inside. I will bring A'ryin'di there, just once the trials are over. They have R'chnt's attention now, and I've been learning about what is going on. Today is the day R'chnt's group will be determined."

The trials had been going on for five rotations; K'Shai imagined quietly that there was just no way they could possibly go on any longer. Every youngblood had proven his place, every honored hunter had done the same, and today had started the challenges of the Elites.

The elite Yautja; older than youngbloods, more experienced that honored hunters, were vying for the highest ranked roles below their Leader. A few of them were contesting to become Leaders themselves, proving themselves to elders and amongst each other.

Today's fights concerned R'chnt directly as a few of the currently leaderless elites would be vying for positions under his lead. After the trials were complete and the matter of positions throughout the clan settled, R'chnt had said he would begin training her along with his new hunting pack as the upcoming breeding season lingered nearer.

Things were going along smoothly; the world was unique and beautiful, and its people proud and strong and honorable. They were adjusting to K'Shai just as she was adjusting to them. She was curious about the mei'sa, and was willing to admit it, but she had many trepidations

S'ridi let the matter drop and K'Shai dismissed herself, making her way back to R'chnt in the same high row of bleachers. She noticed familiar faces as she walked through the crowd; two of them specifically stood out to her.

She saw S'aruch-de, watching her with his single eye, his other one now well healed over, and his cheek bearing only thin white streaks of scars. She also noticed the tall hunter with the narrok. He eyed her, standing quietly and tall in the aisle making sure that everyone went around him and his animal with a wide berth. She felt her skin crawl under his gaze and was glad to tuck into R'chnt's shadow to watch the fights.

When it was time, R'chnt descended to a platform on the far edge of the kehrite, where the Leader supervised the fight between the candidates vying for positions under him.

R'chnt left K'Shai in the bleachers, ensuring her safety to the Elders still around her; friends that he trusted at least enough to keep well away from K'Shai and create an intimidating enough barrier to keep fools at bay.

As he walked down to the kehrite, he passed W'rsa, just a single column over to their right, close enough to K'Shai that he could be immediate back up if needed.

He noticed S'aruch-de just a few rows down from W'rsa, and although he stiffened at the thought of either of them having to, or needing to, step in for her, realizing they would not be protecting her for him to reclaim her, he at least was content enough to leave her in their sights.

K'Shai had drawn in much attention, more so now that she was actively living in his home in the Clan, with an offspring she was clearly well-suited to caring for. K'Shai was making for an excellent mother, despite her concerns over her inexperience, and knowing full well that she could be re-bred, with a breeding season nearing upon them, R'chnt was alarmed by the attention her sweet scent was drawing.

There would be many challenges, he knew. As he approached the kehrite and took to his supervisory spot, the challenge at hand drew in his attention as two impressive honored hunters stepped into the ring.

Both of them had their share of scars from their successes on the alien world, and both of them were looking to etch up in status to Elite, to hunt under R'chnt. When he was told that more than one-hundred thirty fighters would be competing for the four positions he had available in his hunting pack, he realized that the challenges for him alone would likely take up an entire rotation.

The winners of each match would ultimately face each other until only eight were left. The winners of the final bouts would have proved themselves through the ranking competition and be accepted in his hunting pack.

It would be a feat, he thought quietly as he stood on the podium and watched the first pair make contact, for any of the needed hunters to survive through so many spars, each one progressively more difficult than the previous ones. The hunters who would rise to the top would have most certainly prove themselves capable and fierce warriors. Of course, their trials would hardly end with that.

R'chnt knew, as the first pair tore into each other, each trying to put on the best, and bloodiest show that much of the number of competitors vying for a chance on his hunt had more than just a little to do with the notoriety he and K'Shai received.

He had more petitioners for his hunt than any other single leader or elder in the Clan, a fact of which his comrades on the council informed him of earlier this morning. It was one reason why his challengers had been put off to the very last; they would take the longest and new challengers were petitioning for his acceptance right up until the start of the trials that morning.

Bout after bout, the hunters all vied for their opportunity to work their way into the top four places.

R'chnt remained dutifully in his position, though he surveyed K'Shai watchfully while also monitoring the spars, evaluating each warrior on their presence, form, training, strength, abilities, and honored respect of the rules.

K'Shai from time to time disappeared into the company of the females, which relieved R'chnt from watching over her and warily eyeing up the males around her; though he did pleasantly notice that the group he had left her with engaged with her respectfully in conversation.

The trials continued on throughout the rotation, and by the time the the highest hours of the night came, the kehrite was lit up with an amber glow under the twinkling sparkle of the moons and stars far overhead.

K'Shai had grown weary, though she remained in the bleachers with the other elders, comfortable, and happily rooting on the apparent winners of each and every match. The final four bouts were nothing short of a spectacle.

How each of the last eight fighters had managed to survive the entire rotation through spar after spar and still have enough stamina left, despite gaping wounds and broken bones, to continue to vie for their place in R'chnt's hunting pack, was truly awe-inspiring.

She had been surprised to learn that even after the trials of the day, the warriors that were still standing had merely won the right to hunt with R'chnt; none of them were vying for a particular rank in his group. More challenges, all supervised and carefully honed by R'chnt, would determine each hunter's position and entitlements in the hunt, and those challenges, K'Shai was assured, would be equally as bloody.

"R'chnt himself will draw their blood when they fail to perform a task." One of the elders said gleefully, certain that the winning Yautja would find themselves facing a difficult challenge. He then turned to K'Shai.

"So tell me, K'Shai, has he begun training you?"

She looked at him casually. "Yes, he's been training me."

She noticed him immediately survey her again from head to toe, scoffing lightly.

"No, K'Shai, does he _train_ you, not mate with you?" He laughed, causing a hearty chuckle from the others around them, and K'Shai to blush.

"He has been training me." She repeated before she cast her eyes back to the kehrite upon a great bellow.

The crowd roared; the final winner of the final challenge had made himself known. Four battered, bruised, and bloodied warriors all stood lined up before R'chnt, proudly carrying themselves despite exhaustion and injuries. Each one earned the right to train with him, hunt with him, and they could proudly boast if they choose, that they were part of the single most coveted Leader's pack.

"…and they can all try to see how close they can get to you before he kills them." Another elder added.

K'Shai shot him a dirty look.

"They may not have that chance," another noted, and K'Shai quizzically glanced at him, before her eyes scanned back to the kehrite and the stadium fell disturbingly quiet.

Alarmed, K'Shai cast a glance to Neh'rti who was on her feet, watching from her own podium, glancing from R'chnt at the foot of the kehrite to K'Shai, warily eyeing the fighting arena and her.

The narrok owning hunter, I'eilun-de, as he was identified by the onlooking elders, climbed into the arena moments after the last of the four winners vacated and R'chnt had turned to exit the observation platform. R'chnt barely touched a foot onto the surface of the kehrite when I'eilun-de scaled up the wall from the pit and onto the grated metal floor.

His narrok remained obediently on the ground, but ever watchful; completely focused on her handler like a properly trained guard dog waiting for its next command.

I'eilun-de moved into the center of the kehrite, and without a moment's reservation, he arched his back, stretched his arms and bellowed a challenge to the death. R'chnt had barely even turned around enough to even acknowledge a challenger when he repeated the gesture, howled and the two titans charged at one another.

The only sounds in the entire coliseum were that of the echoing roar dwindling away into nothing and both warriors snarling from the backs of their throats as they barreled across the arena into one another.

K'Shai gasped, somewhere between shock, fright, and worry, and immediately darted towards Neh'rti, noticing that almost every head turned her way as she left the ring of elder males that had been encircling her.

R'chnt bellowed his acceptance of the challenge and moved in, immediately offensively. I'eilun-de, he knew, was no fool. He had been surveying R'chnt for days, and carefully eyeing up K'Shai.

The nature of the challenge did not even need to be stated aloud; it was evident enough by the call to the death.

He knew his opponent was as equally capable as he.

Though slightly younger, I'eilun-de was no stranger to cunning, intelligent prey, difficult hunts, surviving immense dangers, and brutally commanding over challengers against him. He was worthy of respect in the hunting field and the sparring arena, and R'chnt knew just as much that he could not dare to underestimate his opponent in the slightest, or he would open himself up to defeat.

"What is going on, Neh'rti? Why is…" K'Shai asked in a whispered alarm, having ran over to the podium Neh'rti was surveying the fight from.

She glared down to K'Shai, some four meters below her mighty crowned head and flared her tusks in sheer annoyance.

"The challenge has been made, K'Shai. I'eilun-de intends to kill your R'chnt and take his place _and_ his properties."

"They're fighting over _me_?" K'Shai muttered in a worried whisper and turned her attention back, in horror, to the arena, watching two equally matched elders square off against each other with ferocious brutality.

R'chnt collided into his opponent, knocking him first, drawing first blood. I'eilun-de staggered backwards after the impact, clearly misjudging R'chnt's power and strength, underestimating the absolute rage that fueled his first strike.

I'eilun-de, with a deep gouge in his chest from the power splicing punch R'chnt delivered, did not waste any time recovering from the attack. He spun out of the backwards motion and immediately ejected a single _dah'kta_ blade from a housing mounted under his left arm.

With a savage and strike, I'eilun-de lunged at R'chnt, who narrowly avoided the blow, sidestepping the attack, and grappling his other arm in a single move. R'chnt dropped to the ground, timing his offensive return perfectly.

He twisted his grip on his opponent's currently un-weaponed forearm and as he tried to strike out again with the single blade, R'chnt yanked him successfully off his feet with a powerful upward thrust.

R'chnt, like a lion circling a downed wildebeest, paced the oval fighting space, watching I'eilun-de intently. It looked like the fight was done; like I'eilun-de was down and R'chnt could take the killing strike, cutting off his head while he was hunched over.

K'Shai eyed the next moment with held breath and wide eyes. There was a moment where everyone seemed simply to stop moving, like the entire spectacle of the kehrite coliseum came to a bated halt.

R'chnt did not fall for the simple ploy. I'eilun-de was soon up on his feet, single sword-like blade swinging. With one single perfect step, R'chnt drew his own well favored sword; a weapon the likes of which he had spent hundreds of years honing his skills with.

K'Shai had seen R'chnt spar with a sword. He was a cunning and elegant swordsman with training and experience that spanned centuries and was influenced by dozens of cultures.

As she watched him glide around the kehrite powerful and smooth, his weapon clanking against his opponent's in perfect rhythm, K'Shai realized one thing; I'eilun-de was every bit as capable and seasoned as R'chnt.

The two of them danced around in synch, each perfectly matched and clashing violently. It would be a beautiful sight, two titans both strong, elegant, and fierce, displaying absolutely synchronized skill, if they weren't trying to kill each other.

They growled and roared and grunted and the sounds their blades striking into each other, causing sparks to fly, echoed up over their voices.

Suddenly, I'eilun-de took a careful dodge directly into R'chnt, who side stepped as if he anticipated the strike ten moves before. R'chnt had known it was only a matter of steps before a thrust was made. He countered and locked his arm around his opponent, successfully rendering the weaponed hand inert.

I'eilun-de, not submitting in the slightest, countered the attack with a twisting motion. He turned around, spinning in a full circle, and striked at R'chnt as he did so. R'chnt felt the burn of I'eilun-de's claws streaking across his own chest. Second blood was drawn, in a nearly matching fashion.

Given another situation, I'eilun-de would have been a worthy and fearsome addition to his hunting pack, R'chnt though briefly as he moved away from the strike and glanced at his own bleeding chest.

There was no question of the warrior's prowess and skill.

Unfortunately, R'chnt thought as he moved in again to counter his opponent's strike, this was not a trial, this was not a petition to enter his group or learn from him; this was a death challenge to claim ownership of K'Shai. Fueled by the fire the thought of what he would do to her if he touched her, R'chnt howled and drove harder into I'eilun-de.

Unsurprising, his opponent met his powered attack with equal force. K'Shai watched intently, worrying about what the outcome would be, and _when_ it would be, given that both of them were similarly sized and equally as equipped to continue the match with no apparent end in sight.

It was a stalemate; a moving, slashing, whirling, metal-on-metal chinking stalemate. Both warriors were bleeding the same, both warriors were defending the same, both warriors were countering the same.

The waiting crowd, still far too silent for K'Shai's preference, spoke of the intensity of the match; the silence was an anticipation, and K'Shai knew they were anticipating that someone's head was going to roll, literally.

It was just a matter of how, when, and whose it would be. And then, it happened.

R'chnt and I'eilun-de whirred around each other, forcefully thrusting, withdrawing, spinning and clashing their blades together in a jaw-dropping powerful display.

The two of them were clearly equals in nearly every way. Then, I'eilun-de, pulling off a stunning half-twist lead in the air, landed on one knee, and sliced at R'chnt.

He knew he was well matched, there was no question. I'eilun-de was pressing hard, and performing at his maximum capability; but R'chnt could also sense that he was tiring, too. He was pressing feverishly, forcefully trying to get the upper edge, and R'chnt remained collected and composed.

It was subtle, but there was just enough of a strain on the part of his opponent that he knew the match was going to come to a close soon. When I'eilun-de dropped to his knee for the second time in the match, R'chnt was certain he was tiring, but there was also the distinct possibility he was trying to trick R'chnt to move in for the killing blow.

Unwilling to give up his winning edge, R'chnt did not attempt to strike, and this time I'eilun-de knew he would not.

His downed opponent struck so quickly R'chnt barely managed avoid serious impaling. The blade mounted under his opponent's forearm did slice his thigh deeply, and R'chnt howled and immediately countered with a clubbing attack with the hilt of his own sword.

I'eilun-de, hardly shocked by the side swiping blow doubled back and regrouped nicely, with great prowess, displaying his well-earned rank, R'chnt noticed. Then, it all fell apart.

R'chnt moved in, noticing a gap in I'eilun-de's tactic, and struck into him with a severe blow. The curved and jagged tip of his sword glided smoothly into his opponent's abdomen and locked into place with its reverse barbed tip, doing its job nicely.

I'eilun-de howled and spun around, pushing his body both off the sword tip and into R'chnt. He hit hard into R'chnt; their _awu'asa_ clanking together dully and both dropped to the ground.

Somewhere in the fray, I'eilun-de withdrew a second, short blade with his previously unarmed hand and lodged it backwards right into R'chnt's chest.

Howling in agitation, R'chnt grappled I'eilun-de off of him, shoved him hard, nearly knocking him out of the arena, which would have ended the fight and resolved the matter at hand, though sadly, would have left his opponent alive, humiliated and forced to choose between dishonored banishment or killing himself publicly.

R'chnt much preferred to kill I'eilun-de himself, and settle this, and ideally any and all other matters on the spot. He stood up growled, sword at the ready, waiting on his opponent, who was now tiring and quickly losing composure, to regroup and try again.

I'eilun-de scrambled to his feet, away from the edge, and whistled. The crowd gasped and rumbled, some displeased by the tactic I'eilun-de was attempting, some expecting to see R'chnt falter, some too stunned by the display before them to even know who to root for.

Many, K'Shai noticed, cast their eyes towards her as she focused with a clenched jaw, watching the arena without blinking.

The narrok leapt into the arena upon her master's call. It leapt from a complete standstill up a distance of easily six or seven meters without any delay, springing up on its powerful, somewhat oversized hind limbs.

For a large and bulky creature that had the look of a bear mixed with a gorilla and the skin of dinosaur with a head crowned in horns that would instill fear into a triceratops, it was jaw-droppingly impressive to such agility.

With all the fearless power of an eaglerly trained attack dog, it jumped into R'chn't knocking him forward and biting firmly into his left shoulder. He roared loudly and bright green blood poured down onto the metal surface, running down his back and side and covering his lower leg and foot.

K'Shai gasped as audibly as the rest of the crowd. She cast her eyes worriedly to Neh'rti, as if doing so might urge the Clan Leader to intervene to stop the fight before R'chnt was killed.

The narrok snarled and shrieked a sound not too different than the terrible shrill calls that haunted her memories every time she shut her eyes. Drowning its call a moment later was a simultaneous howl of inspired victory from I'eilun-de and purely aggravated annoyance by R'chnt.

In a moment almost too fast to follow, R'chnt swung the narrok off his shoulder, over his head and sent her clattering her down belly up in front of him.

He ejected his _dha'kte_ writst blades from his right arm while the sword he clutched in his left hand helped to hold the animal down, and powered the dual blades down through her skull. A dark stream of blood, which appeared like a deep ocean blue to K'Shai, oozed out of the animal and pooled up, running off the edge of the platform.

I'eilun-de howled in sheer rage and charged at R'chnt, who swung his sword, ready for the overhead attack leapt up, howling, and countered the assault furiously.

The kehrite floor quickly turned fluorescent green as blood poured down onto it while the two challengers pitted into each other, each wielding weapons in or on both hands.

R'chnt was bleeding heavily, the dead narrok was acting like a speed bump near the edge of the platform, and I'eilun-de's own profuse bleeding added to the nearly complete coating over the floor as the two savagely danced a death dual.

R'chnt moved quickly, avoiding a strike from I'eilun-de and in a half turn, he managed to slam his wrist blades into his opponent's abdomen, successfully impaling him just above the hip.

I'eilun-de hovered, caught off guard by the unexpected blow. R'chnt felt his own hide stinging in pain as he realized his opponent had landed the entire blade of his secondary weapon through his left side, between two ribs.

Growling deeply, R'chnt heaved and withdrew his wrist blades from his opponent's quickly limpening body and forced him to his knees.

"Challenge _me_ for my K'Shai?" He snarled quietly as I'eilun-de huffed and spat up blood onto his toes.

"Is she…. worth this?" He asked weakly through a spattering cough.

R'chnt's eye's widened completely thrown off by the question as his opponent surveyed him, the fight completely gone from him. He raised his sword and paused.

"Yes." He responded simply, and offered his opponent a nod; a slight hint of respect that was well earned before he slammed the sword down upon the back of his neck.

In one quick strike, I'eilun-de was severed and the metal plating under R'chnt's feet pooled up with hot Yautja blood, glowing in the dusky darkness of night.

He looked around, staggering slightly from the beating and injuries, and noticed K'Shai now approaching him. With a mighty howl that filled the kehrite, the Clan city, and drowned out the silence of the crowd R'chnt displayed himself proudly, unphased by the puncture hole in his side and the blood pouring from his shoulder and abdomen.

He stood tall, bowed deeply to Neh'rti, who returned the gesture, and then hopped off the platform to greet K'Shai with an equal bow, purposefully displaying a typically well-hid submissive side before the spectating crowd.

"Come," he said simply, pulling himself tall.

He stepped down the aisle, pointedly putting her in front of him. K'Shai clenched her jaw and kept her head high, just as R'chnt did the same.

He turned and eyed some 'aseigan who were already moving in to clean the kehrite up. The crowd of spectators mostly began to part, but a few remained and simply watched the pair stand in the aisle as everyone else moved well around them.

R'chnt paid attention only to the 'aseigan and only long enough to find one of his own making his way over towards his master. R'chnt's 'aseigan had been well on the other side of the arena, so it took a few moments. K'Shai simply watched and waited.

"Take _that_ to my dwelling." R'chnt ordered, with a nod towards the dead narrok still laying on the floor of the kehrite platform barely fifteen meters from the carcass of her master.

He said nothing further to the 'aseigan, who merely bowed and turned to tend to his assigned duties. R'chnt turned towards K'Shai, pulled his back straight, which not only made him appear proud, strong, powerful, and confident, but to K'Shai who knew well enough, knew he did it also in response to pain and exhaustion; forcing himself to posture defiantly, knowing they were both being scrutinized. K'Shai couldn't help but feel the burn of Neh'rti's glare as she stood, still looming on the overlook platform above the arena.

"Tonight," R'chnt announced with proud and unmistakable victory in his voice, "we dine on narrok meat. Come my K'Shai we shall celebrate this victory."


	20. Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

"What do you mean you're not going to see L'ruch?" K'Shai protested, dabbing up blood from R'chnt's injuries. "You got _stabbed_! And your shoulder is chewed apart like a dog toy! R'chnt, some of these wounds are _deep_."

"They are minor K'Shai. Some _th'hdka_ will seal the wounds. They will be fine."

"Argh!" K'Shai exclaimed in exasperation. "I will never understand this… Yautja _stupidity_."

She applied the glowing blue gel-like ointment over his wounds, which hurt him further as it sizzled and sealed the gashes and punctures. In one single lathering the injuries would be cauterized, free of bacterial contaminants, stand no chance of infections, and filled in. They would scar, but eventually the skin would close over the sealing medication and the scars would minimalize.

Scars were a particular matter of pride to the Yautja; they told stories. Many hunters preferred to embellish their own stories with over-inflated soliloquies of self-promotion. R'chnt, K'Shai knew, preffered a much more dramatic approach to the stories his body had to tell; silence.

When he stood, tall and proud and composed, the look in his eyes spoke volumes about the history he had seen, the worlds he had been to, the prey he fought. The scars on his body were a silent testament to impressive victories he had triumphed. He chose not to embellish them with words, he merely backed up his skills with a powerful gaze, a threatening growl, and absolute prowess.

K'Shai silenced for a moment, contemplating his thick skin, richly adorned with a lattice dappling of faded spots and long healed scars. She slid the towel over the rippling texture of his skin as he quieted and huffed deeply and slowly, emitting a low growl that very nearly turned into a purr in the silence of their bed chambers.

A'ryin'di slept peacefully in the bassonette next to the bed while a breeze blew in gently through the window, carrying with it the scent of the flowering trees and fresh mists of the waterfall to which K'Shai was already becoming accustomed to. Another scent blew in as well, a tantalizing aroma of cooking meat from the fire pit on the stone patio.

"Narrok meat smells amazing," K'Shai said with a groan, realizing suddenly that she was hungry enough to eat the whole thing.

"It tastes excellent." R'chnt said with a deep self-satisfied purr.

"Do Yautja always eat narrok?" K'Shai questioned somewhat sarcastically.

"It is a well-earned delicacy tonight, K'Shai. For my mate, I will kill anyone who offends, and anything that will fill her belly and please her tongue."

K'Shai smiled thinly, pressing her lips together in a gracious gesture as she dropped her head slightly. She realized that she was actually blushing. She focused back on sapping up the blood from his body with the warm towel in her hands. She watched her own fingers work the slightly steamy damp cloth over his firm muscles.

Her fingers slid smoothly between the ripples between his abdominal muscles and the towel grew a little more yellowish-green with each stroke. He flexed his body, tightening and releasing; inhaling and exhaling; carefully watching her with his deep golden eyes that looked full of contentment.

He was unconcerned with his injuries, but he was clearly enjoying the feel of her fingers groping his body. K'Shai allowed the smell of the cooking meat to linger in her nostrils and the heat of his body to emanate through her own as she stroked his abdomen.

He shifted slightly, leaning back just a bit, propping himself up with his palms into the sleeping mat with elbows locked straight behind him, relaxing under the feel of her touch. He breathed slowly and heavily again, letting out a long exhale that waned into a light click.

She looked at him with a tight grin, twisting the corners of her lips slightly.

"Does that hurt?" She asked lightly as she stroked his muscular thigh, rubbing down another gash that had just cooled off from the cauterization cream.

R'chnt, instead of responding, simply slid playfully backwards, flattening out on the bed. He reached his mighty hands forward and grappled K'Shai's forearms, clicking deeply, rumbling in delight.

"You're in a good mood," K'Shai laughed lightly.

"It was a _good_ fight," he responded easily.

She smiled and leaned against him, pressing her lips to his wide and strong chest, feeling the firmness of his muscles under her lips. She shut her eyes and smelled his skin, allowing the musky scent of his body to filter into her nostrils. It smelled enticing, almost sweet. S

he was far more sensitive to Yautja musk now than she was before she had been pregnant. The scent of his body thrilled her, drawing her press her lips into his chest over and over. She could feel him rumbling under her; felt his rod hardening.

R'chnt trilled and clicked, shifting his body excitedly, feeling her glide her delicate frame across his. He groped her arms, slid his talons across her fine skin along her shoulders and over her back. She pressed her lips against the scars of his body as he slid his hands across her own scars.

K'Shai had battled; she had earned her marks, just as much as she had earned the Blooding brand on her forehead. She was _worth_ fighting for, killing for, and as she slid her hands between his legs and grappled his hardness, making him moan in anticipatory pleasure, filling him with thrilling sensations that only her alien skin and alien ways could induce in him, he spread his tusks widely, announcing aloud his delight with her.

K'Shai climbed onto him, straddling him and delicately unclasped his belt, removed the last of his coverings and gracefully swept away her own garments as she heaved and throbbed. Her body temperature rose, screaming to him that she was primed, wet, and ready for her first mating since giving birth.

The scent of her dai'shui filled his nasal passages and turned his body into a churning whirlwind as he purred loudly. K'Shai, panting and moaning, rocked her hips along his pelvis as he pumped and howled, spreading his tusks wide as he shut his eyes and tipped his head back.

Mating with her relaxed him. It was a completely opposite experience than he was used to, and soon, he knew she would discover that for herself.

She was gentle, thrilling, capable of brewing up intense arousal in him with her soft skin and delicate touch, and with her, he felt eased and able to relax and enjoy the experience, knowing she would not turn aggressive when she decided she was done.

She would become sleepy, peaceful, and want nothing more than contact with his heated bare skin. The differences between her human nature and his Yautja ways were immense, but she was unique and enticing.

Breeding season was nearing and already the females were beginning to flush with heat. Already the males were being enticed; preparing. The trials for position and rank were completed, but soon, _very soon_ , an entirely new set of trials would begin.

He was not totally surprised that I'eilu-de had challenged him for her. He was far from the only one to be intrigued by her sweet scent and enticingly delicate body.

The fact that she could be re-bred over and over was now common knowledge, and R'chnt knew exactly what that meant for the upcoming breeding season.

K'Shai would be safest in the mei'sa, he knew, but she had refused multiple times to join the females. She wanted to be with him, making it known to him that she felt content and comfortable with him. Had he continued to insist that she join the mei'sa, at least until breeding season was complete, she could assume it was because he was unwilling, or unable, to protect her.

If she doubted his ability to protect her, so would others, which would cause more challenges than he already expected.

As the suns rose again, K'Shai was awoken by A'ryin'di trilling in an ever-strengthening voice, that she was in need of attention.

Once the baby was tended, K'Shai walked with R'chnt through the upper tier, into a temple and sat crossed-ankles on the ground amongst the elder and elite males.

Prayer and honor to the gods was a tightly woven part of the Yautja life, and each time K'Shai participated, she learned more and more, listening to the elders, including R'chnt, who served as spiritual guides, teach all Yautja.

Once the morning prayer was complete, R'chnt directed K'Shai towards one of the smaller kehrites. It was nestled in between the complex of mighty stone pyramid structures, in a little nook surrounded by flowering hanging vines and beautiful tall trees.

While the setting looked like something from a rain forest, the kehrite had all the beauty and coziness to it of a garden gazebo. Even the weathered bones that adorned its totem-like walls provided a stunning gothic beauty which contrasted so heavily to the beauty of the purple and white flowers that canopied the roof.

The kehrite, though smaller than the average sized sparring space, was still large enough to host a deadly dance between multiple combatants. K'Shai watched R'chnt with a suspicious grin as he took to the center of the small space.

She noticed that Yautja did mostly everyting in public view, especially sparring, and onlookers were already creeping onto ledges or even in trees nearby, perched on large limbs. Three other elders from the prayer group moved around the kehrite and sat on the ground to gaze at R'chnt from between the nearly picket-fence style pillars.

"Come, K'Shai. Begin as I have shown you." He said casually, completely unconcerned with the audience.

K'Shai stepped into the kehrite and took to the starting position he had taught her. She planted her feet, shoulder's width apart, firmly but lightly. She bent her knees to allow for support and flexibility.

She braced her back but prepared for a sudden series of moments. She thought about how she was supposed to accommodate opposite ends of body posture. Be rigid and braced and strong, but flexible, ready to move, and reflexive. It made little sense.

R'chnt moved into her, calling for the spar to begin. She dodged his advance and spun around him. He growled softly as he rotated on his heels and extended his arm towards her, which she ducked and jumped aside.

She continued to avoid his attacks and quickly grew more confident. She smiled happily as she slid away from him again and again, gliding around the kehrite easily. She drew a growl from him as she dodged his strikes and suddenly, she felt as though she was finally getting how to move, like it was all coming together.

R'chnt watched K'Shai move around the kehrite. It was obvious that what he had been teaching her had faded a bit from being out of practice.

She moved too quickly, too much like a skittish animal. She was trying to think her way through movements purely to avoid him. R'chnt focused on K'Shai, trying again to engage her to attack.

She dodged again, holding her breath in a harsh gasp as she slid around him. He growled in annoyance.

The elders looking on quickly grew unimpressed with the display.

"Well, she is a good _mate_ at least," one of them jested.

"Have you taught her to attack or just run away?" The other said.

"It is clearly in their nature. She is _very good_ at it." The third added to the others.

Without warning, he dodged at her, countering her evasive moves and grappled her with a growl. He wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace and held her in place.

"Whoa!" K'Shai yipped. "What? What's wrong?"

"What have they been teaching you in the mei'sa, K'Shai?" He growled in her ear. "This is not what I have taught you."

"What? I thought I was doing well." She retorted as he let her go and she turned to face him with a questioning gaze of surprise at his annoyance. She cast the elders a sneering gaze as R'chnt paced around her.

"I'm just trying to avoid being hit." She clarified. "I haven't had a good opening yet."

R'chnt paused and glanced at her, surveying her in a calculatory fashion.

She had _plenty_ of 'good openings', she just merely avoided them at all costs. She was avoiding him, avoiding contact, and avoiding the nature of the spar; all things she had well been learning months before.

It was the nature of the females of the mei'sa to teach students to spar with aggressive and ferocious vigor.

Young and eager unblooded were prepared to join with a Leader and earn their mark after final training, and would take on the challenge with a certain dose of fearless brutality that was typical of the untrained.

It was also a common Yautja training practice that students learned through direct and immediate physical punishment when they have made an error. R'chnt himself was not only taught, but also did teach, in such ways.

To make an error warranted certain reprisal, from a bruising blow to the body or face to a broken limb depending on the severity of the spar. An error on the hunt of challenging prey would ensure the death of any Yautja.

It was paramount to learn to protect oneself within the far safer confines of the kehrite.

However, R'chnt knew, from many of own hunts of her kind, and from watching her and her people for months on their world, that K'Shai was very different.

He taught her slowly, carefully, trying to ensure that she learned to use her smaller size to her advantage. He learned quickly that she learned by sight, by demonstration, and by repetition. She had never shied away from his contact, but he also knew she understood he would not harm her.

Now, though, that knowledge, along with the skills he had been building in her, had seemed to fade away. She had lost trust in him, or worse; in herself.

He stepped back away from her and analyzed the situation.

"K'Shai, come to the center," he directed, while staying well away.

She moved into the middle of the kehrite readily. Upon his direction, she repeated the movements he had taught her. She performed them well without any interference, and suddenly looked entirely differently than the dancing escape artist she had been moments before.

She soon lost the hyper reactive fearfulness she was displaying, merely trying to escape his offenses. She quieted her mind, and her body went right along with it. She began to work her way through the patterns of the spar as if she was recalling them from somewhere lost in her memory.

Once she sunk into the rythym and feel of the training she had learned, she began to move with a powerful prowess. For the smallest moment of time, she seemed to tune out her surroundings and allowed the movements to flow from her easily.

The elders turned their eyes towards her again, and clenched their tusks in clear approval of what they saw. R'chnt spread his tusks slightly in a little grin and poised pridefully as he watched her.

When she was done, he nodded to her and she returned the gesture, accepting it as good praise; something he noted she responded far better to than painful reinforcement of errors. She offered him a self-satisfied smile.

"Again," he told her.

She repeated the entire pattern, better this time.

"Again," he requested softly a third time.

Once more, she worked her way around the arena, her body lathering into a sweat as she breathed in synch with the motions. He noticed her glance towards the baby, soundly sleeping in her basonnette which was clearly placed near the only entrance to the fighting space, in full view of both watchful parents.

R'chnt glanced towards his offspring, noting the connection between mother and child, the keen awareness that K'Shai maintained on the baby, and the offspring's own pacified restfulness under the heated suns of her home world.

He offered K'Shai an approving nod once she was done. She pulled herself back into a centered position and waited without moving, attentively watching him for the next direction.

He surveyed her as she stood, back tall, shoulders wide, feet firmly planted hip width's apart, supporting her. She was braced and ready, remaining spryly prepared to move away, spring into action, ready to defend herself or leave the arena as he directed.

She stood with more patience and composure and awareness than any Yautja student he had ever taught.

K'Shai would await a command, not presume to know the next step. She completed her routines without any hint of boastfulness or pride; she simply waited for his critique or direction without a word. She was, in many ways, an ideal student mainly because she _lacked_ Yautja bullheadedness.

Suddenly, once she had stopped _thinking_ , and just started doing, all that he had once begun teaching her flowed back into her. The very things she could not contemplate how to do, she was doing. The elders sitting outside the kehrite watched her keenly, very aware that K'Shai was now a completely different creature than she was when she first stepped into the arena.

R'chnt moved in again. He pressed in close to K'Shai, staring down at her past his long tusks and muscular chest. She kept still, but tipped her head slightly as he moved around her.

She did not eye him directly, nor lift her gaze to meet his at all; she merely surveyed him quietly from her own eye level. He circled her once, then again, tighter, pressing his body directly into hers. She did not budge.

Her heart rate had settled into a fast, but steady, beat. She was sweated up, but steady on her feet. Probably fatiguing, he thought, but clearly standing ready for whatever he would drive her to do next.

She did not shy away from his contact; quite the opposite. Before he revolved around her completely, she shifted her shoulder slightly into him in a subtle, but playful gesture.

Once he completed a second tighter circle of her, he stood squarely before her.

"K'Shai, again!"

Without hesistation, K'Shai restarted the entire pattern one more time. She glided her arms sideways, she spun and crouched and sidled laterally, and paced around the perimeter of the fighting space.

She pirouetted quickly into a spin and on the landing, R'chnt had pounced into her area, extended his arm and engaged her in _jehdin jehdin_. K'Shai immediately grasped his wrist, following through with the motion, and using his arm as leverage to help her swing behind him. She flipped, pressing her back into his back as she torqued past him and he attempted to flip her over his shoulders.

Performing the evasive maneuver beautifully, K'Shai dodged his counter attack and glided down on her feet next to him. She immediately dropped into a bent-kneed crouch as he spun into her and lunged towards her again.

Properly positioned, K'Shai continued through the motion and launched again, straight up, using her bent knees and the momentum of R'chnt's forearms to help her leap as if she was spring loaded.

She grappled tightly with both of her arms onto his armored right arm and landed firmly next to him, immediately launching her left arm into his abdomen, stopping just short of full contact, merely enough to get the point across. Had she been carrying a blade in her left hand, she would have gutted him.

Without any delay, the movements continued on. K'Shai and R'chnt danced around the arena to the intrigued satisfaction of their growing number of spectators, for a blissful moment, both fully engulfed in the spar.

Their paces matched, their hearts beated in tune to one another, their breathing synched up. Finally, R'chnt spun again, bringing himself near to the center of the arena. He extended his arms in a sideways swing towards K'Shai as he followed through with the circular motion from his powerful ankles.

K'Shai greeted the assault readily, properly. She twisted her body of the way of his swing, grappled his forearm again and spun behind him one more time, with a slightly different footing position. She latched her left leg behind his left calf and planted herself into a crouching position, half twisted behind him, half pulling him off balance using a leveraging method he had started to teach her.

R'chnt followed through completely with his turn and reached his right arm towards K'Shai, not fully giving in his position, though she was successfully putting enough strain on him it was hard to counter her assault and defend himself.

She reached for his arm, clearly in an attempt to stop his attack, while not forfeiting her control over his balance. Given the choice between pulling him down, and possibly losing her own footing with him, or surrendering her leverage on his balance, and focusing entirely on the right-handed swing attack he was driving into her, she chose to attempt to maintain her position and counter his attack.

With that, R'chnt gripped her quickly, around her body, and pulled himself free from her nearly downing attack. In a single move, he overpowered her effortlessly and dropped her onto her back on the well worn dusty ground under their feet.

K'Shai glanced up to him as he hovered over her with a simple smile spread on his tusks.

"Hey, I thought I was doing well." She grunted.

"You were," he said with a respectful nod. He extended an arm towards her, which she clasped readily as he helped her to stand.

"You had the advantage. You forfeited it to counter my attack." He said.

"Well, I thought…" she began, but let her words trail off as he tipped his head at her and ticked his tusks together.

"Against prey, K'Shai, do not give up your stronger position. A choice like that will get you killed."

"But if I tried to bring you down, I would have gotten hit, yes? Or I would have fallen with you. So either way, I am not going to win it."

R'chnt nodded, pleased to see that she was learning to see multiple alternate scenarios.

"It is better to risk injury with a strong position, than forfeit the advantage to try to avoid risk and die for it."

She cast him a thoughtful glance and dismissed herself as A'ryin'di trilled a high pitch call of hunger. While she sat cross-legged on the ground outside the pillars of the kehrite, she watched R'chnt continue to spar throughout the entire day. One by one, he squared off with each one of his new hunting pack. Training them had begun.

R'chnt was, K'Shai had already well knew, an excellent teacher. He taught her in an entirely different way than the females taught the offspring within the confines of the mei'sa. He was careful with her, patient, contemplative, and a little protective. He would halt his attacks before making physical contact with her, so as not to damage her skin.

He took her through repetitions and repetitions again and again if she needed in order to learn something new. He changed teaching methods to get her to understand a point she was stuck on. He treated her with a grace and kindness that was simply abnormal for a Yautja.

When he squared off with his newest hunters, or with his experienced hunters like W'rsa and Taroun-de, both of whom survived the Earth War, he was a completely different type of teacher. He was a Yautja Leader.

With them, he pushed them. _Hard_. K'Shai watched the first sparring session with jaw dropped wonder. R'chnt met each one of the ten hunters in his pack with the same aggression, the same stamina, the same power.

One by one, each of them worked their way around one of the larger kehrites, more centrally located between the complex of stone pyramid buildings, sparring hand to hand, and suffering bruises and tears of their flesh from impact with claws or stone pillars.

The spars were nearly as violent as the _nau'chak-thwei'nk_. R'chnt made no effort at all to stop his damaging blows from making contact with the skin of whichever opponent failed to successfully block him. The Yautja very much had a negative reinforcement method of training that rattled K'Shai to the core as she watched it in action again and again.

Yet, each hunter valued their experience. They bowed respectfully to R'chnt at the beginning and end of each spar, and they bore their bruises and blood smears without concern. They would heal, and the very next day, they would be right back at it, ready to show their Leader how much they had learned, or fail again at the risk of painful reprimand.

Each day was the same routine. The suns orbited the world on their two distinctly separate tracks. The higher sun was also the first to set and the first to rise, while the lower sun moved more slowly across a longer stretch of the sky, always hovering almost right near the horizon before it set. It barely dipped out of sight at night as it chased the high sun down past the horizon.

The equivalent of about four hours later, the higher sun was rising up and it was soon followed by the lower sun.

It was a dance that took some thirty-two hours to complete for a full rotation. True darkness never filled the sky, but the moons above were always visible, lightly veiled behind a hazy plume of heat and clouds that encased the alien planet.

The days could get quite humid, especially as storm clouds filled the skies, but often enough, the heat was tolerable, and K'Shai was slowly getting used to it. A'ryin'di, growing every day at an exponential rate, was clearly well adapted to the heat. Depsite fifty-percent of her genetic make-up being human, she was, in all appearances and ways, Yautja.

She shared the Yautja ability to thrive in the heat, and just as the adults sparred all day, training for hours in groups or pairs or against opponents made of air, without any heat-induced fatigue, A'ryin'di likewise never appeared uncomfortable in the triple-digit temperatures.

She was increasingly more demanding of attention, meals, and interaction with her parents, which K'Shai had come to expect. In the mei'sa aboard the atoll, she had certainly noticed how the few mothers aboard with sucklings rarely ever put them down. In many ways, the sucklings required far more attention than toddlers, even though they slept through a greater portion of the day.

K'Shai tended to her daughter with all the attention and wariness of any Yautja mother. R'chnt was pleased to see her managing her maternal duties so well, along with her continued training as a fighter and hunter. As the rotations passed, she slipped into a steady rhythm of spiritual training at first sun and sparring training thereafter.

Her particular schedule was amended to cater to her needs to eat and eliminate more often than a Yautja needed, as well as caring for A'ryin'di. K'Shai managed to do all of it with no complaints and an ever-impressive amount of skill.

She seemed most content when R'chnt held the offspring while reviewing her performing sparring techniques.

He did so readily, and while the sight of an elder male holding and caring for an offspring was incredibly unusual, it had become a certain level of the new normal. It eased K'Shai's wary concern for her child when she was in his arms, and allowed her to focus most clearly on her training. When he needed to step in, he set the baby down in her basonette well within site, for neither would dare leave her out of their covering gaze.

The males in his hunting pack all had not only accepted her, but clearly relished in the novelty of being part of the group that would hunt with the _ooman_. They watched her with interest when she succeeded at a spar, amusement when she failed, and gave her attention that bordered between healthy respect and mocking jest, though they kept themselves in check under R'chnt's scrutiny.

Each and every spar drew in heavy amount of spectators, and after just three rotations, he had changed venues entirely to a larger kehrite that was set in a massive circular courtyard between three buildings, just because it would accommodate the entire hunting pack for simultaneous training, while offering plenty of viewing for specators from the cantina and various overlooks all around. R'chnt managed to proudly put K'Shai on display while ignoring the spectators completely.

K'Shai watched him position her always in the very center of attention, while also acting as though the onlooking viewers were completely unimportant.

Rotation after rotation, he trained K'Shai along with the others in his pack. Each learned not only from him, but also from each other. Part of the training was, at least for the Yautja, basic conditioning to ensure they were always solidly fit and physically pepared for the hunts that their Leader would ultimately take them on.

For K'Shai, she found most of the training R'chnt put her through was a step-by-step process of improving her skill. He was an excellent teacher; methodical and dominant, though he was incredibly aggressive with his Yautja students.

He made no attempt at all to avoid drawing blood and when R'chnt sparred against any of his students in a one and one attack, everyone cleared to the perimeter just to watch; to gleam a bit of knowledge that he would not otherwise tell anyone; to learn just by seeing him do. For K'Shai, he handled her training differently.

He carefully worked with her, guiding her through her learning in a manner that drew in only gape-jawed looks of amazement from all who looked on. He was teaching the others how to work around her without ever directly telling anyone.

He supervised her diligently and handled her carefully, and allowed her whatever breaks or time necessary to tend to her own or the offspring's needs.

When K'Shai took a break from sparring with him, on the fourth rotation of the group training, she had looked around only to notice that everyone she could see was watching them.

She turned quickly to R'chnt eyeing him with a worriedly curious gaze, which he understood immediately.

"They are not used to me training in such a way." He said lightly to her as he cupped a taloned hand over her shoulder and ticked one upper mandible lightly in a small grin.

R'chnt would not strike her or harm her and she knew it. She also knew that the females lacked that restraint at all, and while she wanted to avoid training with them, she did very much want to try that much harder for R'chnt so as not to make it appear that she was too weak to be trained like any other Yautja. It was a complicated situation, she thought.

"And they all want to spar with you."

She eyed him widely again. "Why?" She questioned in a self-doubting tone.

Surely, there could be nothing special about sparring with her, she thought. Most of the time she could barely keep her feet moving properly in time with her hands.

"Valuable learning experience." R'chnt said simply.

"You move differently. Many of these hunters have never hunted humans. They are only used to sparring with other Yautja, and hunting animals."

K'Shai nodded in silent understanding, not ever having considered that her uniqueness amongst the aliens could be seen in such a way.

The days passed by in a blur of motions. Weeks of training had turned from a curious spectacle to commonplace routine. K'Shai, with each passing day felt herself growing not only stronger and more confident, but also more capable.

R'chnt pushed her right along with the rest of his group and the more he did, the more she was able to simply tune into what she was doing and forget about _thinking_ her way through it all. Just as he had been tring to teach her, which she could not seem to consciously do.

Suddenly, she was pulled from her concentration during a spar with W'rsa one day by a loud bellow.

The entire group came to a sudden halt as one of the hunters suddenly crashed to the ground after a dry crackling sound that could only be the sound of shattering bone.

K'Shai turned towards the commotion as R'chnt stepped in and glared at the two students; one standing, the other catching his breath and cradling his left arm with bones visible from the forearm, sticking out glistening white and covered with dripping green blood that fluoresced.

K'Shai cringed and gritted her teeth together. W'rsa halted and watched, standing tall, and ticking his mandibles, clearly as annoyed as R'chnt that the sparring patterns had to be halted.

R'chnt stalked around his downed student, but offered no support of any kind. He did not kneel down to see if T'au-de had been badly injured. He did not offer his hand to help him up. He simply glared at all of still standing students and allowed his gaze to shrink T'au-de's opponent Nehrude by at least six inches before his deep golden eyes shifted towards K'Shai.

"Hunters will get injured on hunts." He began. "It is no dishonor. You will find strength and pride and glory in your own blood shed."

He paced slowly, methodically.

"But you do no honor at all to yourself or your Clan if you fail to pay attention to your opponent. All prey is deadly, respect it all. Respect even the prey who give their life purely to feed you. Who's trophies are worthless, but yet whose hides and bones adorn us while their meat feeds us. Respect the prey whose prize you seek, _especially_ prey which will hunt you back. Never lose concentration on the prey before you. And never focus so intently on that prey you forget to pay attention to your surroundings as well. Even a _kainde amehda_ will attack from behind."

T'au-de finally got up once R'chnt had paced his way well enough away to make him feel comfortable to do so. He said nothing and R'chnt merely offered a simple nod as he made his way out of the kehrite to seek medical attention. Nehrude poised rigidly, trying rather poorly, to hide a certain smug grin of self-pride at T'au-de's blood trail out of the kehrite.

"No honor comes from disobeying orders of your Leader, either." R'chnt scoffed with an annoyed growl. "You must learn to control yourself just as much as you need to learn to fight intelligently. Uncontrolled brute strength is meaningless. Learn to stop yourself from striking when you must, learn to control your own self."

Suddenly Nehrude deflated a little and K'Shai couldn't help but to press her lips together into a little grin.

"Again, we spar. Without the intent of serious harm to your opponent. We will all bear bruises and bleed. In the kehrite such mistakes will occur. On the hunt, you will die for those mistakes. Pay close mind to your own body and those around you."

"Ready." He paused, standing tall in the center of the kehrite. "Begin."

He pushed the Yautja in his pack for endless hours, waiting for any one of them to balk at the difficulty or complain of fatigue. He impressed upon each and every one of the hunters in his group that on a hunt, there was no room for failure. This was demonstrated frequently by the bruises and broken skin any of the Yautja received in return for failure to execute a move properly or to block an attack.

The Yautja in his pack and those who spectated spoke of him with absolute respect, and K'Shai had learned much more about R'chnt through stories of him that they told over a shared meal. She found the largest part of the training he put them all through was mostly how to teach them to all work together as a group.

Not only did they all need to learn each other's unusual quirks and grow to function as a single unit, they all also needed to learn how to operate with K'Shai in their midst.

R'chnt handled teaching the male Yautja of his group how to work alongside a female human carefully. He supervised diligently while allowing others to spar with her. There were times when he could teach her best by shadowing behind her, teacing her to move around and against another opponent.

Usually, he selected W'rsa for that particular sparring duty, feeling that W'rsa was the least likely to accidentally or otherwise slip up and strike her. The others were all slowly trying to learn how to function around a female a third their size and far more delicate, but most of them could barely control their own motions against each other.

Adding to that fact that K'Shai herself was still learning, R'chnt had deemed W'rsa most capable of partnering against her.

As more rotations passed, R'chnt guided K'Shai through ever increasingly difficult maneuvers, and as her abilities grew, so did her sparring interactions with him and his group.

By the time more than three weeks of rotations passed, K'Shai had advanced enough in her training to hold successful hand to hand spars at full speed against her opponents. She powered around her maneuvers confidently as R'chnt supervised all of his hunters. He paced around the kehrite while K'Shai and W'rsa worked on their techniques.

He kept close watch on her, but also stalked between other pairs of fighters, training, correcting, and showing the entire different movements.

K'Shai smiled widely as she came to a halt after finishing the exercise, along with the rest of the group. R'chnt overlooked the entire group, clearly satisfied with their abilities. Each hunter, paired off, displayed ever growing prowess, and all of them worked simultaneously, using the full floor space of the kehrite, creating quite the spectactle and drawing in more viewers.

"Again," he said simply, in his deep growling voice that echoed through the arena's space.

Without a word, the Yautja took up positions and began again. Each pair moved in synch, working their way around the kehrite flawlessly.

Under the dual suns of mid-day, surrounded by a combination of ancient looking pyramids and jungle trees, with dozens of curious spectators surveying them, the pairs of hunters worked fluidly, each focused on their own pair, and mindfully aware of the pairs surrounding them. Like a tightly choreographed ballet, the pairs danced within their own fighting circles, while simultaneously rotating around the kehrite.

K'Shai could feel W'rsa's power as he followed through with each strike. The heat billowing off his sweaty body hit her like a fire every time she sidled into him, danced around him, or launched herself past him by grappling a wrist, an arm, or even between his legs in one half slip-up movement that she twisted to her advantage.

She smiled thinly as the move confused W'rsa for just long enough to cause a delay in his retaliation. Gathering her mind quickly, she saw an opening and immediately focused on the next moment, certain she would manage to down the imposing force before her.

For the fleetest of moments, a micro second perhaps, she felt powerful and certain; confident and energized. She was _Yautja_.

She moved into position, eyeing W'rsa's clumsy half spin to catch up with what just happened as she pulled herself together quickly from her slip up. She clenched her jaws tightly and focused totally on her next move.

Readying to make her next attack, she rebalanced herself, shifting backwards slightly. Then suddenly, she felt immense pain and lost track of what was happening. She was flung backwards and hit the stone floor, barely able to focus. She heard roars and commotion and felt her body flush and tremble as the side of her face quickly heated up and a piercing sound shot through her ears and flooded out all other sounds.

R'chnt had looked back to K'Shai in time to see her fumble through what should have been a flip resulting in her landing on her feet. Instead, she landed incorrectly and her knee buckled, causing her to go down. Reacting quickly, displaying her ever growing prowess, K'Shai simply followed through with the buckling as if it was part of what she intended to have happen.

She had finally stopped constantly trying to think her way through her motions, and instead allow her reactions to come to her naturally. He looked on proudly, tusks pulled apart into a small smile as he watched her confuse W'rsa for the slightest moment as she darted smoothly between his legs and popped up behind him.

It was obvious that she was focused as she smiled thinly, clearly was proud of what she had done. She channeled her certainty that she was going to be victorious, and simultaneously, also had done something he had warned her about several times; tuning out her surroundings.

It was an easy and common mistake for young hunters; one that he had learned the hard way. The power of the moment when a hunter knows that victory is his is the same moment any hunter is at the weakest. K'Shai failed to notice she had crossed into the sparring space of the pair just behind her.

R'chnt moved in, but it had all happened so quickly and it was done. Utik'de whirred around against his opponent and as K'Shai stepped into his space and lost her awareness of her surroundings, she was completely unaware that his arm was swinging furiously towards her.

W'rsa collected himself and turned just in time, scanned the situation in a fraction of a second and before anyone could react, Utik'de's arm slammed into the side of K'Shai's head full force and sent her flying backwards.

Everyone halted as R'chnt bellowed a displeased roar. K'Shai was down and bleeding profusely, moaning vaguely and apparently unaware of what had happened.

W'rsa stood his ground, wanting to move in to check on K'Shai, but well aware R'chnt was moving in like a raging beast. R'chnt slammed Utik'de to the ground as he pushed past him to get to K'Shai.

K'Shai heard R'chnt bellow to her, jolting her back to attention. She was shaking furiously and that high pitched tone ringing in her ears simply would not stop.

"R'ch…." She gurgled through a mouthful of blood.

"Silence K'Shai. On your feet. You must stand."

She pressed her eyes closed again and raised her hands over her face, moaning as she coughed out spurts of blood. She heard his words, but was certain she could not do as he commanded. She shifted her body, but it only curled over on its side as she released a shrill wail as her face flooded with tears.

As the ringing in her ears died out, her mind focused on A'ryin'di, just a few meters away in her bassinette on an elevated platform, well out of the way from the hunters and the spectators, with four watchful females nearby.

The baby had stirred and K'Shai lolled her head towards her child, noticing the baby's legs and arms flailing as she awoke and announced her hunger. K'Shai suddenly lifted herself up, driven to answer the needs of her child.

She grappled R'chnt for support in forfeit of holding her face together. She could barely stand, barely focus, but she made a direct line for her baby, pulling R'chnt along with her, although he was clearly intending to take her a different direction.

She sat down next to as the females moved in while K'Shai tried feebly to grapple her child.

"K'Shai, come with us to the mei'sa. You need medical attention. The healer will…." Sri'di said briskly, but K'Shai raised her palm.

"I'll…" she started to rebut, but stopped when she realized she could not open her mouth. She moaned again painfully as she gripped her face, feeling it swell, throb, and flush with painful heat.

She could barely see out of her left eye and she was sure that she was going to black and blue after this one. She quieted down as blood ran out of her mouth and she swallowed with a grimace, and let R'chnt sort it out while she sat shaking next to A'ryin'di's bassonett.

"I will take her," he said with a deeply bowed head.

The females held their ground and allowed R'chnt to help K'Shai back up to her feet without a word in refute.

K'Shai walked alongside R'chnt, slumped into him for support. He carried A'ryin'di and sometime later she opened her eyes and saw he and L'ruch overlooking her. She did not remember even shutting her eyes, but she knew she was in L'ruch's jurite. She saw A'ryin'di resting just at the foot of the table she was on and focused in on L'ruch's words as R'chnt stood tall and listened.

"…fragile. Her jaw and skull were shattered." L'ruch hummed for a moment, the proudly stated, "I have mended it, and re-inserted three of her teeth."

"She lost four," R'chnt growled.

L'ruch withdrew slightly at the Leader's clear displeasure.

"I made the fourth from alloy, it will serve as a replacement."

R'chnt nodded, retracting a bit.

"She will heal, R'chnt, but it will take time. For her, she will not heal as quickly as a Yautja and she is more susceptible to pain than a Yautja, keep her on suppressants. Allow her to rest."

As she sat up, both heads turned towards her, neither having noticed she had returned to consciousness. K'Shai felt utterly dazed by everything that happened, but she had heard enough of her own condition.

She tried, slowly, to open her mouth, and it stretched, although painfully. She rubbed the left side of her face lightly and grimaced and whined as she shifted her legs over the side of the table and sat upright, groping her tongue over the metal implanted molar.

When she thought about advanced bionic implants, a _tooth_ was not exactly what came to mind. It felt funny in her mouth, simply not natural. It just did not belong.

She bumped it several times with her tongue to see if it would budge out of place, but it did not. It also did not hurt. It just felt funny.

She composed herself and nodded to both Yautja. R'chnt approached her carefully, looking a bit uncertain as to how to proceed. She eyed him quietly and turned her attention towards A'ryin'di who woke up and lolled over.

K'Shai placed her hand on the baby's back as she started to belly crawl towards her mother. She was unable to smile, when she tried it just hurt too much, so she winced and moaned under her breath and scooped up her daughter.

"Come, K'Shai. Can you stand? I will guide you back home for some rest." R'chnt offered, extending a hand towards her.

Slowly, she shifted off the table, A'ryin'di comfortably gripped on her right side as she leaned into R'chnt and allowed him to escort her home. As they walked, the ground felt somehow soft, like it was moving with each step, as if she was walking over a giant mattress.

She wobbled and shifted, finding the experience disorienting. The heat from R'chnt's solid body soothed her, lulled her into a pacified state of sleepiness, which was aided by the effects of the drugs in her body to help mask the throbbing pain from her head.

She did not even remember getting all the way back across the Clan City from the worker's areas all the way up the cliffside pass to the top tier buildings, into R'chnt's living quarters and into the bedroom. She did not remember sitting on the bed, or tucking herself under the silky golden and red bed sheets.

R'chnt watched her fall asleep without even acknowledging him. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps she simply was too pained and too medicated to even really know what was going on. She slipped into the bed and dutifully nursed A'ryin'di; even as disoriented she was, her maternal drive and instinct to care for her offspring seemed to control her body without her knowledge.

After the suckling had her fill, and K'Shai had lolled over in a bruised heap for sleep, R'chnt picked up the child. He cleaned her and tended to her and carried her with him as she fell asleep in her arms while sitting under the lowering suns out on the terrace.

W'rsa appeared shortly after he had sat down, and in a short matter of time four other curious acquaintances filed onto his patio. Whoever had not witnessed what happened had certainly heard about it through the highly efficient _grape vine_. A few hunters that had come to know K'Shai well expressed their concerns for her well being.

"A hit like that could have killed her." One pointed out.

"The last two who laid hands on K'Shai both were punished. R'chnt, will you be killing Utik'de?" Another questioned with a grunt.

"No." He answered with a deep growl followed by a sigh. "This was a training accident. The error was K'Shai's. She stepped out of her circle, and she failed to pay attention to her surroundings. This is a hard lesson she will likely not repeat."

It was a difficult position to be in. He was not oblivious to the fact that she would likely get harmed during her training. She would likely suffer harm on a hunt, where he had far less control over what was happening, he knew. K'Shai would bear this lesson well and he could only hope she would learn from it and use it to prevent future accidents.

He silently concerned himself with the notion that she may become reluctant to spar again, but as heads turned away from him, he looked to the door to see K'Shai standing there watching them.

Her face was bruised heavily, swollen, and flushed with heat. She kept her jaw tightly clenched. She stood in the doorway between the kitchen area and the patio, swaying as if she had a hard time deciding if she wanted to step out and join them or remain inside. She nodded respectfully to all of the hunters staring back at her and braced her body tall, elevating her chin and standing firm over her ankles.

R'chnt could see that she was still wobbly and shaken. He stood and approached her and she eyed him widely. When he came within reach of her, she extended her hand to his and gripped one of his fingers tightly, nudging him to come with her back inside.

She returned with him into the bedroom, tenderly stroking her sleeping child as they walked past and she turned to stare out the window.

"K'Shai, you will rest. Once you are stronger, we will return to your training."

She turned and gazed at him, considering all that had transpired.

"I…think….tomorrow…." she said, speaking slowly and pained, "I will… go… to… the … mei'sa…."


	21. Chapter 21

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

"The offspring belongs there, K'Shai. Even if you choose not to remain, A'ryin'di's place is in the mei'sa. It is proper, and it is safe. Safe for her, as you can see how accidents happen easily especially amongst hunters." S'ridi said smoothly and factually. "And it is safer f…" she paused.

K'Shai stopped and looked directly at her.

One rotation was hardly enough time for her to say she was feeling better. The swelling was worse and her skin, if it was even possible, was darker.

The black tattoos branded into her skin along her shoulders had some tough competition from the color of her eye and cheek. At the very least, the heavy doses of pain killer she was taking, nearly twice what L'ruch had instructed for her physiology, was helping to abate the pain. She still felt like she was walking through fog on a mattress, but she was managing better.

"What?" She snapped in a low tone, unable to really open her mouth enough to make a projected sound. "Safer for me?" She mumbled.

S'ridi grumbled.

"You are not Yautja, K'Shai. But you are strong. Still, you can be killed easily. Even accidentally. It would do your A'ryin'di no good for you to die if you wish to rear her yourself. You are Blooded and you are female. In that, your place is in the mei'sa."

"I'm not going to get killed," K'Shai protested with a flaring mumble. "R'chnt is teaching me. Utik'de never meant to harm me. Even R'chnt said that it was my fault and he's right. I know he was right."

"It is still proper to raise the offspring in the mei'sa. She should be with children. And away from the hunters."

"They wouldn't…" K'Shai said with a growl of doubtfulness.

"It is strictly taught that the Gods do not welcome the strong who kill the weak. Preying on sick, weak, or immature because you are stronger, will not bring your blood Honor, nor honor the clan, nor find favor with the Gods."

S'ridi nodded in vague agreement with her assessment, then added, "K'Shai, blood can turn bad."

K'Shai said nothing.

She stepped with S'ridi onto the transport platform and it slid quietly into motion, gliding with all the silent ease of a hot knife through soft butter. The vehicle left the main part of the city, followed a clay dirt trail down the backside of the mountain and glided over a stone bridge that stretched a wide bredth of the river, before heading down another dirt pass, through the jungle and finally, rounding a turn into a massive open field.

K'Shai's jaw widened as far as it possibly could without pain. She gaped her lips and gasped in amazement. She had only seen the mei'sa from the mountain top view from R'chnt's home. She did not realize that the place was simply _massive_. The wall surrounding the stretch of the mei'sa she could see was far taller than she had realized. As the vehicle drew closer to it, she stared up.

The wall was easily two stories tall, with a look of stone. It was beautifully adorned with skulls and bones and inscriptions. It was _solid_ and strong and proud, rather like the Yautja themselves, especially the females. She could not imagine it being penetrated by any force.

The tall grass field before the stone wall swayed in the breeze and the transport floated easily along the dirt trail up to the massive metal gate, which popped open as they approached. The doors opened inward and the vehicle continued along more grassy fields, as long as wide as any vast pasture K'Shai could have ever imagined. Far in the distance, rising up like peaks of mountains were the stepped side of one of the pyramids of the mei'sa.

As K'Shai and S'ridi exited the vehicle at the bottom of the stairs of the main structure, Neh'rti and four other females approached the entry all surveying K'Shai with the usual look of scrutizing displeasure she had become accustomed to. K'Shai grimaced as she walked up the stairs, somehow suddenly feeling like a runaway child being woefully returned by a social worker to a stern grandmother she did not really want to be with.

Considering her options as she clung to A'ryin'di, suddenly convincing R'chnt to _just leave_ and settle down somewhere on an uninhabited world seemed like the best choice. They could go to a world with plenty of challenging hunting, and no Yautja, and raise their family in peace, she thougth quickly. Deciding in the time it took to walk up about thirty stairs that she could never put him in such a position, K'Shai pressed A'ryin'di closer to her and stepped up to the Yautja before her.

Neh'rti turned without a word, only a typically annoyed sounding clicking, and K'Shai followed along silently. She had been inside several of the other pyramid buildings throughout the clan. All of them were functional, rather utilitarian, but each had their own character mostly dependant on the purpose they served. The mei'sa, from what she had seen so far, was completely different.

K'Shai gaped in wonder as she walked down an ornately decorated, golden hued corridor. The combination of white marbled stone and shimmering gold statues made the entire facility look as though it sparkled and gleamed. Sunlight poured in through the many open windows and vertical panels, casting both heavy shadows and glistening beams of light into the wide corridors.

As they moved further into the center of the structure she noticed that the entire middle of it was one wide open floor space, shooting straight up to a petal-like tip that was open for the suns to shine through. K'Shai stopped and stared.

"Wow." She whispered.

She did not even realize the entourage of females moving along with her stopped. She finally looked back to them for a moment before she was destracted again, this time, by noises. Not just any noises. K'Shai focused on the sounds echoing into the building.

They were high-pitched trills, squeals and shrieks and vocalizations that were not sounds any Yautja could make, she thought. At least, not adult Yautja. K'Shai suddenly realized she was hearing the sounds of children. _Happy children_ , playing, laughing, fighting, getting dirty, doing as they would, exactly as children should be.

She turned and focused her attention out one of the four massive doors that were at each end of the pyramid and moved past Neh'rti towards the echoing voices. She stepped out of the doorway and smiled, huffing in surprise as she surveyed the sights in the heart of the mei'sa.

"Beautiful…" she whispered in stunned shock as her eyes scanned green rolling hills, a massive sparkling lake in the distance, and the vine-covered pyramids.

Seven pyramids were all interconnected via the same overhead walkways as she had become accustomed to in the clan city. The structures all formed a complex around a center courtyard that was so massive it was difficult to see clear to the other side of it, as part of it rolled away out of view down the gentle slope of the hill.

Massive and green, the courtyard areas between the mei'sa buildings had all the acreage and peaceful beauty of vast rolling farmland. Every square inch of the place was meticiulously maintained, the grass level, and the buildings kept up beautifully, complete with accents of flowering vines and of course, bones and skulls inside and out.

K'Shai soon found her feet gliding down the stairs into the courtyard as if they moved without her knowledge while she gaped in stunned wonder. Freely running through the grass yards, properly supervised by mei'sa females on keen guard, were hundreds of children as far as K'Shai could see.

It was like grade school recess and every child was out on the playground. Some of the cubs were barely able to walk, barely older than toddler age, others were about the height equivalent of a human teenager. Each group of cubs, segregated by size, was involved in either play or patterned practice or skill building games.

As K'Shai watched them all slowly begin to notice her and turn away from their games and fights, she surveyed them. Slowly, like a wave of change sweeping over the massive field, the children came to a stop as the closest ones noticed her first, and then the further and further groups all caught on to something different in the air.

Some of the children, bigger and braver, than the younger ones, slowly stalked over to her. Most of them held their ground some distance away, but watched in wonder none the less, taking in the sight of her and an offspring in her arms that on the surface certainly _looked_ Yautja.

One young male, as scrawny and gangly as any young human might be, stepped almost to arms' reach of K'Shai; the bravest of the bunch, she thought. He gaped at her, eyes notably wide, and K'Shai, reacting before she could keep herself in check, turned and smiled at the child warmly.

He growled in alarm and jumped, backing off suspiciously with a wary warning to his friends. If he was a dog, he would have had his hackles up. His sudden reaction to the ominous threat of the alien before him was enough to cause his pack of friends behind him to trill and squeal in alarm and sway on their feet, clearly torn between running away and waiting to see what was going to happen next.

Neh'rti, S'ridi and all the other females simply stood nearby quietly, in a quite typical female supervisory position; close enough to intervene if needed, but far enough away to allow events to unfold as they would so the youths could establish their ranks as they would.

The boldest and toughest of the group, though still wary, approached K'Shai again and she began to hold very still. His friends tip toed in behind him, happy to let him be in the lead position. They watched her warily, clearly ready to jump away if necessary. Every time she moved at all, the children jumped away with shrieks. A'ryin'di, from time to time, kicked her legs or flailed an arm, reminding the children that there was a suckling Yautja in the alien creature's arms, which seemed to help spur some of them to try again and approach.

Suddenly several of the children eyed a point behind her, and K'Shai realized she was being approached from behind. For the slightest flicker of a moment, well aware of the natural aggression that young Yautja were capable of, she had an alarming worry over what exactly what was going on behind her, and she stiffened. She inched her shoulder and bent her body slightly in such a way to allow a non-threatening, yet still wary view behind her, and dropped her eyes.

A young female had boldly and bravely walked right up to K'Shai and was reaching to touch the back of her thigh much to the stunned horror of the older children who were still not sure what to make of the unusual creature.

The young female cub placed her tiny palm on K'Shai's thigh with a hard and quick little smack, as if she was trying to gauge if the creature before her was even real. When her palm made contact, the speckled little child stopped and stared at the leg in front of her and then tipped her head backwards to look up at K'Shai's face. K'Shai turned and grinned tightly, trying hard not to show her teeth and frighten any of the children into thinking she was a threat or there to be hunted.

"Monster." The little female said roughly and slowly, in a typical display of the slow to develop mental and vocabulary skills of young Yautja.

K'Shai, stunned by the girl's observation, withdrew slightly and dropped to her knees, trying to be less threatening.

"No. I'm not. I'm just… different…" she said quietly and slowly, trying to reassure the child. She extended her hand towards the little female, with intention of gently touching her cheek.

With that, the young female, bold and obviously the bravest of the entire group, grabbed at K'Shai's hand as firm as she could and inspected it, as if checking again to make sure the alien was real. Her grip was almost painful as she paid no attention to how hard she squeezed or dug her talons into K'Shai's far more fragile skin.

She ran her other hand along K'Shai's forearm, past the leather bracers she wore and up onto her branded tattooed skin along her elbow and bicep. Seeing that their youngest leader had done what the others were too afraid to do, the older children finally stepped forward and followed suit.

In a matter of seconds, K'Shai was swarmed with curious children all trying to touch her anywhere they could. They were curious and excited. Though they yanked her hair and even scratched her skin as they groped her feverishly, she allowed them to satisfy their curiosity until a few of the mei'sa females stepped in finally.

"Youngsters, this is K'Shai. She is part of the Clan. A'ryin'di will be raised amongst you." One of the females announced, bringing the children into silence as they all stopped and listened to the elder speak.

"What is she?" One of the older children asked.

"I've seen skulls. Bones. Spines. Like her."

K'Shai swallowed and shifted uncomfortably as a shiver ran through her body. S'ridi and Neh'rti, judging by their silent glances towards her, clearly noticed it.

"K'Shai is a _human_." Another of the females added.

The children clearly all knew the word well enough. Many of them gasped in stunned acknowledgement. A whispering murmer filled the air. K'Shai could hear some of them say words like _ooman_ and _earp_ and other poorly pronounced misunderstood alien words. But the implication was clear; the children knew her species even if they had never seen one alive before.

"No hunting," one of the children called out.

K'Shai, for a fleeting moment, wasn't sure if the boy had said it to clarify that she herself was not there to be hunted, or if he was acknowledging the decree that had been passed banning all Honored Yautja from hunting humans ever again. Enough damage had been inflicted on the human home world thanks to the Yautja, and hunting a species into extinction was very poor behavior.

The Yautja frowned upon such things. K'Shai had heard plenty of Yautja were _displeased_ with the idea of no longer hunting humans ever again, or at least until the species repopulated enough. She knew such things would certainly draw the line between Honored hunter and bad blood; if a Yautja could not resist the temptation to hunt the _pyode amedha_ again.

"K'Shai is a Blooded Hunter of the Kaunte Dar'een Clan, youngsters." One of the females responded to the statement; vaguely implying she was not there to be prey.

Hoping the point was made clear enough, K'Shai watched the children depart once they were beckoned to return to their games and practice and learning. She watched the youngest children trot away quickly with barely a concern at all as they resumed their activities. The older children, taller than her, and strongly muscled, lingered a bit longer, clearly contuining to scan her and formulate their own opinions about her presence before they slowly stalked away.

K'Shai spent the better part of the day touring the mei'sa by foot. The campus of interconnected structures took most of that time unto itself. Massive barrack-type facilities housed the youngsters for sleep, separated by both gender and age groups. Females were housed on one side of the mei'sa and males on the other. While the genders were generally well segregated for sleeping, meals, learning groups, and sparring, they did still intermix in the massive acreage of the courtyard between all the buildings, while well supervised.

"The older males are more than eager to show off for the females," K'Shai was informed by one of the mei'sa females who watched a small group of older youngsters, nearly old enough to begin their own journey towards Blooding under a leader, intently. It was an usual thing, K'Shai thougth, that the older children were the ones that truly required the most amount of wary watchfulness, and that was really saying something.

Sucklings were almost never put down by their mothers or caretakers. Only when they were asleep were they deposited in large resting groups for a short while. The toddlers would play and fight, and required enough supervision to make sure they didn't seriously harm one another or get into anything that could hurt them. Older children spent much of their day in learning groups. Not all that much unlike human school, the children learned from different matriarchs on subjects of spirituality and fighting.

The eldest of the children, the ones who were advanced enough with their preparation for the hunt that they were nearly of age to be taken on by a Hunt Leader, were definitely the ones that needed the most supervision. Hormonal, powerful, full of themselves, K'Shai quickly noticed how easily they took to fighting amongst one another. Establishing dominance was a necessity, and even within a single day in the mei'sa K'Shai noticed how frequently dominance shifted and was challenged within groups.

Oddly, once dominance was established, each group seemed to continue on with their newly sorted out ranks, without further issue. Friends still talked to one another; the fights over position and status, regardless of how bloody, did not seem to cull any relationships.

There was a healthy respect between all of the Yautja, and weaker and smarter Yautja seemed to be more prone to back off and accept their new place, without losing respect of the one who put them there. That, K'Shai thought, was vastly unlike high school as she knew it.

K'Shai looked on from the ledge above a few dozen stairs at the gaping mouth of the pyramid. The suns were low in the sky now, the moons above were glowing more brightly, and a wind was picking up, bringing in another storm. Five females supervised a group of older students who were still sparring amongst themselves while one matriarch paced around them, carefully making sure none of them got too out of hand considering they had training staffs in hand. Even without metal slicing tips, the dull weapons could easily serve as deadly implements, and hot-blooded Yautja youngsters, as K'Shai had observed, were quick to allow their tempers to fuel them.

"At that age, all they want to do is _impress females_." The elder matriarch sneered.

"At what age _don't_ they want to impress females?" A younger matriarch responded quickly.

K'Shai chuckled aloud, but their attention was quickly drawn back to the group, bringing all three of them to their feet, just in case.

The female that the males had been keenly trying to impress with their fighting skills had somehow gotten entangled with the three males. K'Shai had missed what happened exactly, as she had look away for the briefest of moments, but the female growled loudly and had already knocked one of the males down in front of her as she nearly strangled him. Clearly, K'Shai thought, she was not impressed by him.

Before any intervention was necessary, the young female released her grip and backed away. Neh'rti, having noticed the whole show from an adjacent platform, strode over casually, surveying both the group of children in the grass below, and K'Shai and the other females.

"Amused, K'Shai?" She sneered.

K'Shai quickly straightened her facial expression, but did not respond, she turned her attention to scanning the rolling grass grounds, overlooking the many children before her.

"It is the task of any of us to watch our youths. To protect them. From themselves, if needed." Neh'rti continued on.

"They are the future of our Clan. The strongest of them will keep this Clan strong long after we all have died. K'urindi, daughter of Esra'di, is of excellent breeding. Her lineage will be one that will continue this Clan for centuries. Many males will wish to breed her, but only one who is truly worthy will survive to accomplish it."

K'Shai glanced to Neh'rti quickly, acknolewdging her presence, but not really sure if she was supposed to respond in some way. With her silence, Neh'rti continued on.

"Your daughter… what will she learn from her _ooman_ mother?"

"She will learn to be Yautja, as she is." K'Shai blurted out immediately, with no attempt to hide the biting tone in her voice. "She is of excellent breeding, too."

"She has R'chnt's blood in her veins," K'Shai added with a stutter, to clarify what she meant about good breeding, suddenly regretting taking the sharp tone. "She will add strength to this Clan and help continue it for centuries."

K'Shai immediately went on the defensive, stiffening her position, sucking back A'ryin'di to her chest, wrapping her tightly in her arms as Neh'rti's gaze dropped down to the baby with a definite sort of _I don't think so_ type of look that K'Shai did not approve of. The other two females stood like statues, tusks spread in drop-jawed shock at the showdown, unaccustomed to seeing a female snap at Neh'rti in such a rude manner.

"We shall see, K'Shai. We shall see." Neh'rti grumbled before moving away.

Once she was well out of sight, K'Shai finally remembered to breathe. The other two said very little on the matter, looking rather uncomfortable with the mere idea of snapping to Neh'rti in such a way.

"… so, what am I supposed to do? Just let her act like A'ryin'di is unworthy? Treat me like I haven't earned the right to be here?" K'Shai growled the end of the day's tale to R'chnt, who held his child quietly and merely watched her pace in frustration.

"Every day, every time I see her, she has to have some way of reminding me that I don't meet her approval or that A'ryin'di doesn't. Or never will. What else do I have to do, R'chnt? What am I doing wrong? She doesn't give anybody else as hard of a time."

"K'Shai!" He finally said in a forceful whisper. "You have always said this of Neh'rti, but I think you are misjudging."

"I'm not judging anything. _She is_." K'Shai bit back unwarrantedly to R'chnt who dropped his head softly and ticked his tusks together.

"I'm just… I'm _trying_. I really just don't understand what her problem is. I've been doing everything I can to learn the Yautja ways and to make sure that A'ryin'di will learn them too, when she's old enough. I'm just not willing to be away from _you_."

"Time, K'Shai. Time." He reminded her. "You are fatigued, you should rest."

Pacing, K'Shai shook her head. "Oooh, no," she said with a light chuckle. "I'm not fatigued. I'm completely wired."

R'chnt stood, walked across the patio into his home through the kitchen and down the corridor to the bedroom. K'Shai paced agitatedly behind him, still muttering under her breath about Neh'rti. R'chnt, seemingly unconcerned with his mate's heightened level of annoyance, delicately placed A'ryin'di into her basonnette.

The child had long since fallen asleep in his arms and since her needs were already tended to, it was time to tend to K'Shai's.

She hovered in the doorway and watched him put the baby to rest, finally falling quiet and settling her body for a moment as she watched a delicate moment between father and daughter as the mighty and fearsome warrior that he was tenderly laid his child to rest as if he was handling an eggshell. He turned and approached her and she did not budge from the doorway.

He pressed himself into her as she held her ground. He felt her heart pounding through her skin, he could smell her anxiety and frustration.

"Come," he said to her and pressed into her until she shifted into the corridor.

He put his hands on her shoulders and guided her to his personal kehrite for training. He stood her in the center of the kehrite, where she immediately took the proper stance and awaited her cue to begin. She had been focusing entirely on _jehdin jehdin_ training.

K'Shai was learning to use her body, to fight unarmed, _hand to hand_ and she was growing in her skills, despite her error which led to her current injured status. He scanned her as she stood ready to move into a sparring pattern. The bruises on her face were prominent and adding a variety of hues to her typical color.

He left her waiting his cue in the center of the arena and stalked over to a wall, retrieving two training staffs. They were as simple as they come; solid wood from the mighty _zuchal_ trees that grew in the jungle. Their nubbed ends ensured that no one could be impaled. Though they were used for basic training, they were still a capable and deadly enough weapon and needed to be wielded as such.

"It can be used to bludgeon. Bones can be broken." He warned K'Shai as he finished introducing her to the training staff and offered one of them to her.

K'Shai reached for the weapon with reservation and suddenly fell still and quiet. Suddenly her mind, which had been running furiously, settled and her focus turned onto the weapon in her hands. She had only sparred a couple times with weapons, mostly as a way for R'chnt to gauge what she already knew, back on Earth, which now seemed so long ago.

When he realized that she knew very little, he started with her from the basics. As he handed her the weapon now, she suddenly felt completely unready for training with it, but she took it all the same, eyeing him warily, waiting for his next cue.

She clearly became nervous upon taking the staff. Her heart sped up and her jaw locked in place. He was preparing to take her to the next step of her training soon as it was. He had been impressed with how quickly she learned and was able to repeat what he had been teaching her. She would repeat the actions without really _owning_ them or understanding them, but she was trying. Slowly, her _jehdin jehdin_ had grown and she was finally adapting her own ways, her own style, though she seemed to not even realize it.

He could tell by her reaction to the staff that she felt she was not ready to possess it yet, but she trusted his judgement. He moved into her, teaching her how to hold the staff; how to move with it, how to feel comfortable with it.

"It will become part of you. Just as the _awu'asa_ you will eventually wear. It will flow like blood in your veins, just allow it to come." He said as he glided his fingers lightly along her arms, directing her through a series of movements.

The weapon was light enough to carry, which she was surprised by. The size of it at first made it seem like it would be cumbersome to move with. It had a thick shaft and was a solid foot taller than she was, well sized to be a useful training tool to a Yautja, but it was so long for her that she had to pay particular attention to not trip herself as R'chnt guided her in formations around the kehrite.

Sure enough, she tripped over it.

"Do not lose focus, K'Shai." R'chnt said plainly as she spat a curse over her own foolishness.

"It's too long for me. My hands barely fit around it." K'Shai protested.

"Focus, K'Shai. Allow the weapon to move with you."

She shifted her foot pattern again, trying the movement he just showed her once more, and once again, tripping.

"Agh!" She growled in frustration. "Just another thing I can't do properly."

"K'Shai!" R'chnt grumbled dismissively.

"Show me again," she snapped angrily.

Watching him move around with prowess and power, completely in synch with the weapon he possessed, dreadlocked hair and loin cloth coverings flapping as he moved, she sighed and huffed.

"No," she muttered, shaking her head. "I can't do this. I can't do any of it."

R'chnt paced the kehrite for a moment backing away from her, allowing her to regain her stance, but her frustration flushed again. She had a few moments of quiet stillness, which were quickly overridden by flustered temper. He ticked his mandibles softly, pondering briefly the similarities between humans and Yautja.

Both were clearly prone to lack of control over their tempers, but it seemed that humans had the added tendancy to doubt their abilities while Yautja were usually entirely too overconfident in theirs.

It was obvious K'Shai was in no condition to focus on the quiet methodology of working with the training staff. He circled part of the perimeter of the kehrite watching her fluster herself more and more on the spot. A change of tactics was in order, K'Shai was in need of a distraction.

He bellowed a mighty roar. "Defend yourself!"

K'Shai jumped with alarm, caught completely off guard as R'chnt charged, roaring at her. The sight of all three-hundred-fifty-plus pounds of him, with a staff in his hands, muscles rippling, tusks flared, running her down was enough to send chills down her spine. He immediately waved the staff at her and she responded in turn, raising her own weapon up to defend her head from being bashed in.

The two wooden staffs banged together with a resounding echo and R'chnt immediately shifted position and attacked again.

K'Shai whipped up, jumped, evaded, and slammed the staff forward, wincing as she withdrew slightly upon impact between the two staffs. Suddenly the two of them were off, dancing around in an unplanned choreography. There was no time to think, only react. In an instant, everything he had been trying to teach her made sense, and it was all so oddly different than trying to survive against the _hard meat_.

The kainde amedha charged with the effectiveness of a clawed, fanged, spikey tailed stampede. They cared not about their own safety, nor did they use any real tactics. Facing them was a matter of making sure your gun was loaded, you had plenty of extra ammo, and you were fast on your feet.

Pirouetting around a sparring arena with a full-on raging Yautja bearing down upon her, K'Shai realized the dramatic difference in a way that she had not before. She had never faced off with R'chnt in such a manner. He seemed _angry_ , or at the very least annoyed, as he pressed her harder and harder to fight him back until they were both glistening in sweat.

He howled and growled and spurred her into furious motions, battling him away and urging her to come at him, which she suddenly realized she was doing, without even thinking about it.

She lunged forward with the staff and swung it through the air, colliding into his forearm with a dull thud. R'chnt paid it no mind at all he simply countered the attack after blocking her assault.

She jumped up, spun around him, avoided his strike and whirled around the staff to come at him again against his back. R'chnt, without missing a beat, spun around, bringing his staff right along with him, making her jump and forfeit her attack in order to get out of the way of his retaliation. Strike, evade, jump, lunge, evade, spin; it all began to flow naturally, his constantly reiterated words making sense to K'Shai as they moved in brutal harmony.

Feeling the power of the ferocious spar, K'Shai began to brim with confidence. The movements came easier and as she swung and meleed and lunged and evaded full speed with R'chnt, she allowed the rush of adrenaline to fuel her.

She whipped the staff one more time, swinging it high above her head and bringing it down hard, certain she was going to drive the end of it between R'chnt's calves and twist enough leverage through her body to pull him off his feet.

In a fraction of a moment, K'Shai was lifted off the ground and slammed hard onto her back under R'chnt, who glared over her in amusement, ticking his mandibles lightly.

"Hey! What did I do wrong? I thought I was doing well." She groaned, remaining motionless under R'chnt's straddled legs.

"Overconfidence." He said simply.

K'Shai paused, considered his words for a moment and then laughed loudly. R'chnt was pleased to see her ease up her body's tension. The spar had pushed her hard enough to make her forget her earlier troubles. Her mind was cleared and he was pleasantly surprised to find that she did spar rather well for her first time, rather unprepared, with a staff. It seemed that pushing her a little more as a Yautja, instead of progressing slowly, would be a benefit to her as it would force her to focus more on improving her skills.

He watched her tense and agitated body relax. He could taste her dai'shui building as she huffed under him, her heated body glistening with sweat. R'chnt purred and lowered himself down atop K'Shai, his thighs straddling her hips as he allowed part of his weight to sit on her, certainly not enough to cause any harm, but enough to keep her still and allow her to feel his sac sitting against her.

K'Shai responded almost immediately, so quickly and assertively it surprised him a little. She was not often so aggressive, as she usually preferred to allow him to dominate her. This time, she grappled him so feverishly it stimulated him to force himself upon her more.

K'Shai moaned in enticing protest and R'chnt pressed himself against her further. She triggered his natural instinctive nature to overpower her and _make_ her his mate as she huffed below him and aggressively spurred him, grappling his forearms, running her delicate fingers along his chest, pressing her lips into his bicep so feverishly her teeth dragged against him.

R'chnt allowed his aroused purr to turn to an echoing growl. K'Shai picked up on his guttural sound and its significance and smiled thinly at him, a look of pure _dare_ on her face.

With that, R'chnt pulled himself off of her and rose to his feet quickly, grappling her by the hips and bringing her with him. K'Shai heaved and moaned as R'chnt backed her against the wall and supported her with one arm under her butt.

He removed his loin cloth with his free hand and stripped away her garments, tossing each piece of laced hide to the ground some distance behind him. He eyed her with flared tusks in pure pleasure. His body throbbed and he could feel his heart beating rapidly pumping his heated blood through his veins into his extremities.

K'Shai, he could feel from his first grip under her, was growing wet and ready. There was something about her scent now that he had never noticed before. It was a foreign smell, not Yautja at all, but it clearly stirred her into a hormonal high as she allowed her to voice to echo throughout the oval chamber.

Without any delay he inserted himself into her and she howled with a gaping jaw, then quickly clenched her teeth shut and groaned mutedly. He pumped and thrust into her, furiously driven by the dai'shui she was emanating.

He watched her panting heatedly as he emptied his load powerfully into her with a long deep rumble. When he released her from his grip and lowered her down to the ground, K'Shai collapsed in a heap and rested. R'chnt slid down to the floor next to her and she leaned into his chest. As she caught her breath, he found himself purring effortlessly as he, too, allowed his body to cool from the powerful experience.

"I hope we didn't wake A'ryin'di." K'Shai whispered after a short while and stood without further word, quickly with a jump, almost as if there was some kind of emergency she needed to attend to.

He stood and followed her into their bed chamber and watched K'Shai quietly hover over the bassonette.

"She can sleep through anything, I think…" she whispered to him with a smile.

He walked over to her and pressed his body against hers, still sweaty and nude. He wrapped his arms around her and his skin tingled as she caressed his arms and pressed her lips to him.

"She is content, no reason to worry. She is safe." He said quietly. "And her mother?"

K'Shai turned and looked up at him. She eyed him widely, then took a deep, calm breath.

"I'm alright. Really. I am. You just knew exactly what to do, didn't you?"

R'chnt smiled widely, pleased to see that she was relaxing more.

"We will do it again tomorrow." He said simply.

"Oohhh," K'Shai hummed playfully. " _All_ of it?"

"All of it," R'chnt said in his deep voice, without the slightest hint of play.

K'Shai laughed deeply and nodded, then offered him a smile and retrieved her sleeping child into her arms. She sat back into the bed and allowed her mind to clear, figuring that tomorrow would be the start of a new and better day, a different frame of mind.

She hoped perhaps for the few hours left before the sun would come up, that her dreams would not be invaded by the shrieking echoes of satan itself. She finally drifted off to sleep with the infant cradled against her. R'chnt moved in next to them and sat quietly in the misty heated hours of Yaut's version of night.


	22. Chapter 22

CHAPTER TWENTY – TWO

True to his word, R'chnt started out the morning with a spar in the kehrite with the training staff followed by a round of heated mating. He had stirred K'Shai before first sun, but by the time she tended to her own body's needs, A'ryin'di's needs, and eaten and gathered herself, R'chnt was left waiting until after the second sun was well up.

He bided his time with little annoyance, as he was used to K'Shai taking three times as long to do anything as he did, by sparring against an invisible opponent. When K'Shai had finally stepped into place with staff in hand, he was well sweated up.

He nodded his head deeply, respectfully greeting his opponent in the proper way as he was diligently teaching her, and then furiously moved in for the first attack. K'Shai, picking up right where she had left off during the last session, blocked, countered, and met him with vigor. He spread his tusks in a pleased smile, happy to see that K'Shai was picking up her new training rather quickly. Suddenly, it seemed that all was coming together well and she was remaining sufficiently distracted from her grievances over the females.

The only matter he could not apparently successfully distract her from were the haunting visions she had during her sleep; dreams the plagued her, nightmares that scared her.

She continued to fear the hard meat long after the matter was done. His continual reassurances that she should not worry nor fear them did nothing to alleviate her fears, so he was pleased to see that he was at the very least able to find a way to focus her attention around them when she was awake.

K'Shai responded to the increased work load of training far better than he had expected. He was pleased to see a Yautja streak of stamina and power emanating from her as she tackled the newest challenges he was presenting to her. It was impressive, and as one rotation passed and another and another, she had clearly become far more comfortable with her training sessions.

During the days, she would spar _jehdin/jehdin_ with the rest of his group and merely watch when they worked with weapons. She used the time to tend to A'ryin'di, and successfully managed to avoid spending time in the mei'sa as well as sparring with weapons in front of an audience. He humored her desire to only spar privately with him, but soon enough, she would need to take to weapon training amongst the hunting pack.

Her jaw had healed well and her strength and understanding of his teachings continued to improved. She focused intently on working on her sparring, allowing it to consume most of her time throughout each rotation. Others, he noticed, were taking notice of the sudden change in K'Shai's abilities, demeanor and presence. Their attention was not only drawn by her new-found focus, but also he was well aware, their interest was at a maximum because mating season was beginning.

Soon, it would be time for K'Shai to display herself as a Yautja mate claimed by and for only him.

He watched how the males took particular interest in her. Their curiosity was especially driven when R'chnt stepped away and allowed K'Shai sparring time with another in his group. With him watching from the edge of the sparring arena, spectators acted almost as if he was unaware they were gazing at her. K'Shai had begun to fight more aggressively, and much to both his surprise and pleasure, she had also begun to mate more aggressively, turning each new time together into something that combined Yautja-like sparring courting with the human pleasures she could elicit in him.

As he watched her sparring hand to hand against W'rsa now, he grew ever more pleased by her abilities, and silently hoped some fool would cross into the arena and try to approach her. K'Shai had, in the course of the last few rotations, gone from an intriguing curiosity to an ideal mate.

As if her sweet scent and unusual nature was not already appealing enough, now she had begun to fight like a Yautja. Her skin, already tattooed and branded as any proper hunter's. Her scent, lightly laced with a Yautja aroma that lingered long after her pregnancy, combined with her newly found aggressive behavior, simply turned her into something that _everyone_ wanted to take for themselves.

With mating season beginning, females were flushing into heat and males were taking notice of all of them. Females had already begun their own methods of scrutinizing males for potential mating, not that R'chnt understood any of it. He certainly understood how males selected potentials for mating, and as he stopped one spar and evaluated his hunting pack, he knew he would need to do yet more to show K'Shai's ever growing numbers of interested parties that they should stay away from her.

He paused the group and then nodded to M'ar-de, silently directing the youngest member of the group to get the sparring staffs and start handing them out. K'Shai, he noticed as he moved around the kehrite, purposely staying at the perimeter, shot him a look he had become quite familiar with. It was a look of her own self- doubt.

Her own questioning gaze that told him she did not feel comfortable doing whatever it was he expected of her at that moment. In this case, she was telling him that she did not want to spar in public with the staff.

She had continually expressed her own concerns over how her staff training was progressing. Every time she dropped it or fell, she was quite vocally certain that she was failing impressively at her training and completely unable to " _do it_ ", as she would say.

She seemed to always trust him in all matters, except when he assured her she was far from doing as poorly as she seemed to think. He had found that pushing her forced her to refocus her thoughts and concentrate, so he disregarded the look she shot him now and waited for the training weapons to be distributed.

K'Shai casually slid over towards him, but did not say a word. Instead, she glided right past him, using the momentary break in the sparring to check on A'ryin'di, who was well asleep in the bassonette on the pedestal on the terrace beyond the kehrite, right where she was when K'Shai had put her there before beginning sparring.

He watched her gently stroke her fingers over the baby, who was not disturbed by her mother's delicate touch, for she was sleeping too soundly. K'Shai softened for a moment, her sweated body relaxing as she turned instantly from aggressive sparring opponent to nurturing mother.

K'Shai settled down next to the baby and noticed that M'ar-de held his ground, with one training staff in each hand. He stared at her quizzically, but said nothing as he hovered, noticeably uncomfortably, some distance from both his Leader and his Leader's mate.

"K'Shai." R'chnt said in his deep, commanding tone.

The implication of what he wanted from her was clear and she immediately braced up. He knew she was about to protest, although he suspected she would do so by diverting from the actual matter.

"A'ryin'di needs…" she started.

R'chnt, unsurprised, was prepared for the rebuttal. K'Shai was clever. She did not want to appear as if she was arguing against R'chnt in front of the others, something he much appreciated. However, she was most definitely trying to avoid doing what he required of her.

"The child is resting. She does not need to be disturbed. K'Shai, you will spar with W'rsa."

K'Shai silently gaped her jaw; a subtle hint that she was about to protest. The others, no doubt, would interpret the look as a sign of willingness and readiness to take on the challenge of the spar. He knew well enough that she was formulating a rebuttal in her mind, especially as her eyes instantly flickered between him and the sleeping infant, then settled on the staff in M'ar-de's hand.

She glanced one more time towards R'chnt, who pricked a single tusk in a half grin; not the response K'Shai was looking for judging by the glaring look she cast him.

Without a word, she stood up and retrieved the spear from M'ar-de. She was clearly unhappy, and grabbed the weapon with an aggressive jerk, sending a signal to the hunters around her that she was a female with something to accomplish. In the same moment K'Shai stewed in angry silence, obeying R'chnt's direction while still protesting, she suddenly _became_ Yautja.

Her actions were that of any female Yautja's. She disregarded the males completely as she retrieved what she was after and took to her place before her opponent. She gritted her teeth, she braced her body, and she suddenly casted an appealing strength from her posture and her scent.

It was a signal that was typical from any Yautja female. _If you want to mess with me, you're in for a fight because I'm in no mood to deal with you_.

R'chnt smiled as he watched her take to her place, equally as consumed by her appeal as the males who looked on. Those in her immediate vicinity stepped back a little, deferring to her as any dominant female Yautja deserves from a male, especially those within reach of the staff.

R'chnt pressed his tusks together tightly, suddenly realizing that everyone within visual range of the kehrite seemed to turn their attention towards her, both male and female.

He cued his group to begin and they stepped off with a small and simple pattern as he instructed. Three simple moves, of which everyone in the group performed well each time he instructed them.

Satisfied with their start, he called for the next series of movements, slightly more difficult, but again, well executed from the ten hunters that were all well accomplished enough to handle the motions, including K'Shai, who still seemed to be silently brewing in anger as she worked perfectly through the patterns without a second thought, displaying her improving precision and growing skill while drawing in highly interested crowds of spectators.

She had, at first, complained of the length and size of the staff, and insisted she could _do better_ if she had one more appropriate to her smaller size. She grumbled in protest in the quiet of their training arena when he declined, but now, just rotations later, she was indeed working with it as she should.

Slowly, he built his group through a series of progressively more difficult sparring patterns. While he mostly did it to help K'Shai feel more comfortable, which she clearly was by her body's ever-relaxing posture, he also did it to emphasize to his group that no matter how advanced a hunter should become, the basics should never be overlooked.

Far too many hunters, too over confident with their own mighty skills, would all too often forget the most basic aspects of their training and such lapses could cause injury or death to that hunter, or even the entire hunting pack.

R'chnt prided himself on teaching his students methodically. Perhaps a so methodically that it challenged the patience of typically brash youth, but he had a long history of highly accomplished hunters, polished warriors ready for their own leadership, and strong members of the Clan.

K'Shai worked into the next series of movements smoothly and R'chnt gave the next command, increasing the level of difficulty even higher. He emanated a low growl as he paced around the kehrite watching his students practice.

As one would disarm an opponent, they would turn to find the next armed opponent and continue on. So it continued until all pairs had been disarmed and stood on the edge of the circular fighting arena until only K'Shai and W'rsa remained.

K'Shai barely even realized how long she had been lost in the spar before she finally halted after being unarmed by W'rsa. She had not realized that no other sparring pairs were even left in the arena. She was suddenly not even remotely embarrassed that W'rsa had caused her to lose her grip on her staff. She was proud that she did not fall when he cold-shouldered into her during the disarming move with all the force of an angry bull.

She tightened her frame, glanced around with a glare in her eye that had a sort of _what are you looking_ at glean to it towards anyone that caught it, and strode out of the kehrite to tend to A'ryin'di. As she sat and nursed her child, she glanced around took a quick survey of how many people were watching her. She paid them no mind, and instead when her attention was turned towards several females nearby, she got up and joined them.

"K'Shai, it seems that many males have taken an interest in you." One of them said quickly, with a sharp tone as if somehow it was her fault.

She eyed the females flatly and shifted her grip on the baby in her arms.

"It is time for the males to take an interest in all breeding ready females." Another added.

"They know you can breed again and again," the first said to K'Shai.

"They also know their place." K'Shai growled strongly.

"What are they going to do? Challenge R'chnt? Everyone in the Clan watched R'chnt kill I'eilun-de over me. I'eilun-de was a powerful elite. Who is going to challenge him?"

She snapped. "Doesn't matter anyway, I am R'chnt's." She added in, proudly broadcasting that fact loud enough for anyone to overhear easily. "I'll kill anyone that tries to put their hands on me."

"Still, you should remain in the mei'sa. For yourself and your child." The second female added.

K'Shai sneered with a dismissive grumble.

"I don't know wha…."

Suddenly, a loud clattering sound resounded through the massive courtyard following by two bellowing roars and a rising echo of chittering voices. K'Shai and the other females looked over towards the commotion, only briefly noticing that nearly everyone came to a halt to watch.

Two young males were locked into one another, each trying hard to grapple the other down to the ground. They looked quite a bit like stag moose with their racks interlocked.

Near them was an upturned table and dozens of metal platters and mugs that had clattered to the stone ground, squashed food, spilled drink, and two very amused looking young females watching on.

Within seconds, the two males pommeled each other successfully until the lesser male had accepted his loss. The young female approached the bleeding and out of breath dominant male.

K'Shai could hear her ticking from across the courtyard, a loud trailing sound that seemed to evoke a rigid reflex in every male watching.

The female circled the victorious suitor slowly and far more sensually than K'Shai had expected any Yautja female could convey. One grunted vocalization later, it seemed apparently confirmed that the female had accepted the male as a potential mate.

He clearly got the message because in a flash, he was disrobed and grappling onto the female.

K'Shai dropped her jaw in abashed wonder at the spectacle as the female combatted her suitor so aggressively that she drew blood from him. Her actions did not at all discourage him from his desire to mate with her.

Perhaps he was entirely too aroused at that point, K'Shai couldn't be sure, but as the female broke free from his grip and darted off, he took chase. The two of them could be heard roaring until they rounded out of K'Shai's sight between some buildings.

Not one single Yautja looked disheveled or concerned or anything that remotely resembled embarrassed by the nude display that nearly led to public fornication. K'Shai, sure that her own face was beet red, finally withdrew her lower jaw and rubbed it slightly, as it was still tender and the effort of being gaped for so long made her uncomfortable.

Once the pair had gone about their business, everyone else returned to theirs without any concern for what had transpired. K'Sha sat in awkward silence looking around between the females who kept conversation around her for some time while the males continued to spar under R'chnt's tutelage.

"Is that kind of thing… _typical_?" She finally asked of the females after nearly an hour of fidgeting in silence.

They looked at her quizzically, stopping their conversation mid-sentence as if they had no idea what she was talking about.

"That …" she paused and tried to come up with words to vocalize it. "… _mating_ _display_?"

One of the females huffed quickly.

"K'Shai, it _is_ mating season. By this nightfall, mating will be the only thing on any males' mind."

"How…how long does this last?" She asked, still trying process that such a thing was perfectly acceptable.

What _looked_ like nothing more than a bar brawl that was followed up with borderline rape was clearly so commonplace no one even bothered to act the least bit surprised by any of it. However, it was obvious by the way the females reacted to K'Shai's questioning, they were surprised with her unfamiliarity of such things.

"Breeding season lasts for twenty rotations." She was informed.

K'Shai thought about all that she had learned about female Yautja and calculated some math in her head. Twenty Yautja rotations was a little short of five Earth days, and from all that she knew so far, the Yautja came into season once annually, if they had not been bred. A Yautja year, however, was roughly the equivalent of five Earth years.

Suddenly, the differences in gestation made more sense to her, as well as the growth rate of young Yautja. She also realized why R'chnt was happily embracing her aggressive behavior during their own mating; it was simply more natural to him, and more invigorating.

What a human thought of as a century was to the Yautja barely sixteen cycles. K'Shai dropped her eyes to A'ryin'di and pondered how the very different growth rates would affect the baby in her arms. The child was already nearly a full month old and was growing rapidly. She was far larger than any human at four weeks of age, though. Perhaps she had inherited a faster maturity rate from her mother, after all.

K'Shai let such thoughts occupy her mind for the rest of the rotation and even until the next morning as she remained aside R'chnt accompanying him on his business in the Clan city after a long night's rest.

As she looked about, she took careful note of the behaviours of the males and the females who watched them. Just as she was told, the display the males would put on had hit full force. Unclad males proudly presented themselves, roaring and fighting amongst each other to impress the females that looked on, each one hoping they would be worthy of perhaps a line of females waiting on him to service them.

R'chnt and K'Shai made their way to a cantina and as they sat and ate, he looked towards her with a half grin.

"What?" She asked with a questioning gaze and a smile, after she noticed him staring at her.

He said nothing and K'Shai looked about the cantina again, scanning the Yautja going about their business, and stopping to note in particular those who were obviously trying to impress females. She was more than just a little surprised at how well the tactics of the males worked to actually draw in females. Parading around naked and fighting with each other were absolutely on equal levels as those males with so much experience and the trophies to back up that experience, that they had to do very little to draw in mates while simultaneously also deterred rival suitors.

Available females prepared to breed sought either a male who could put on the most show, or a male who had already proven himself and by reputation simply did not _need_ to put on a show. R'chnt, as an elite elder did not need to put on a show, but K'Shai couldn't help but to notice how females were not looking towards him to sire their pups either.

The message R'chnt had projected about his _ownership_ of K'Shai also apparently came with the caveat that he was no longer interested in mating with Yautja females.

K'Shai gazed at him while they ate, and she considered what that meant for him. He did not seem to mind that condition at all. He was satisfied, and able to meet his own urges whenever he needed to, with a willing mate.

R'chnt's entire demeanor, K'Shai had noticed, had changed slowly. He seemed to her, simply more _laid back_. He watched the males put on their displays with a semi-interested gleam in his eye, but he spent a long stretch of time simply sitting and watching and not engaging. He was warily watching any male who might look towards his mate for too long.

Finally, after noticing her staring back at him for quite some time, R'chnt turned to her and echoed her own question to him.

"What?" He purred teasingly.

K'Shai cleared her throat and raised her eyebrows, pressing her lips together into a simple grin.

"I just couldn't help but think; mating season is here, and you did not seem to want to act on that last night at all."

He pricked a tusk as he gazed at her. Was she asking him if he intended to mate with other females, or was she asking why he had not satisfied himself inside of her? He was not sure.

"And now?" She questioned again.

R'chnt clicked loudly, glanced around, surveying their surroundings for onlookers. No one was terribly close by or paying attention at the moment, so her question was clearly not intended to become a display.

"I just thought you might have wanted to, that's all."

He gently caressed her cheek and watched her shift her grip on the offspring.

"You need your rest." He said simply.

She looked quizzically at him, but said no more on the matter as three males warily approached to talk to him. She watched them hesitate until he indicated silently that it would be acceptable for them to approach him and his female. Shortly after their conversation started, K'Shai had slipped away to join some females.

He noticed her approach them in much the same manner, waiting until they indicated she could approach. He found himself tuning out of his own conversation to consider K'Shai's position once again.

For a time, she was considered dominant and strong-willed, just as any Yautja female could be. She displayed herself as such during almost every spar, and certainty during every mating he shared with her, as she recently grew more aggressive. She was also naturally passive and reserved, and she seemed to switch between the two behaviours multiple times a day. It was very confusing to keep up with, although the females seemed to pay it no mind.

They accepted her into their business without delay, whether or not they caught on to, or cared about, her timid approach did not seem apparent to him as he watched from across the cantina terrace.

He glanced around noticing he was certainly not the only one watching K'Shai as she walked across the cantina and joined the females. He silently thought about K'Shai's recent displays. She had begun to refuse to return to the mei'sa, but she still sat with the females whenever possible.

Neh'rti had simply stopped expression her opinions on the matter, and it seemed to R'chnt that K'Shai was strong enough to impress the necessity of her way into the females. It seemed she was adjusting well and as breeding season peaked, it was obvious that many males had noticed, though few did little more than stare her way for a moment too long.

He waited long after his own conversations had ended until K'Shai finally rejoined him and the pair headed across the Clan city.

"Where to now?" She questioned immediately when he turned down a path away from the trail to his home.

"Let us soak, K'Shai."

Feeling a bit drained from the entire day of activities, but also grimey enough from sweat and dust, K'Shai nodded and turned with R'chnt towards one of the many soaking houses on the upper tier of the cliffside. Even with the suns so low in the sky, and the lower sun nearly ready to dip beyond the brim of the horizon, the Yautja homeworld was hot. It was always hot.

Although the soaking water, as K'Shai finally tip toed into it was hot as well, she had long since gotten used to hot soaks and it still felt cooler to her than the ambient heat of the world.

K'Shai cradled A'ryin'di close to her in the water as she sat shoulder to shoulder with R'chnt. The baby always loved the soothing feel of a hot soak, from even before she had left her mother's womb. Clearly, it was Yautja nature, K'Shai thought quietly as she watched the child settle into sleep as the adults around her talked. In a neighboring soaking pool, which was occupied by eight males; an unusually large number of males to share a single pool, K'Shai noticed, the conversation had quickly grown to attention-getting levels.

The two male elders and two female elders sharing the pool with K'Shai and R'chnt looked over, along with the six female elites in another neighboring pool. K'Shai pursed her lips, watching with the same type of interest as one gazing at a car crash might have. She felt a little guilty and even embarrassed to watch, but yet she could not turn away.

Two of the males got into a tussel and took their display to the stone floor outside the pool as the lesser male, who gave in to the dominant male, tried to evacuate for the safety of his unclad genitals and the dominant male, still not done proving his point leapt from the pool and tackled him down to the ground so ferociously the lesser male's mandibles all crunched together as they hit the rock floor.

Piqued interest around the room led to plenty of stares, but no one intervened, no one even hinted at the idea of stopping the fight. The stronger male took full advantage of his position and situation and pommeled the weaker male until he was satisfied. No sooner did the lesser male get up and scramble out of there, leaving his victor looking fully pleased with himself than 'aseigan hustled in to clean the floor while the still-inflated winning male growled his dominance over them, too.

K'Shai looked around to see if any females might find the male's powerful show, or half erect penis appealing enough to instigate another type of fight. She could not help but to feel that the display was all rather very interesting.

Completely the opposite of human courtship, the Yautja did not romanticize anything to do with mating. It was pure and simple hormonal satisfaction and reproductive urging satisfied, and it was quite literally the only time in a single Yautja rotation that males had a chance at satisfying their urges.

The entire process was intiated and completed in the course of minutes, and the females never stayed around for a second round, save for extremely rare occasions. There was no wooing, no years of complicated dating, nor was their even jealously. Such matters were resolved with fighting between both rival suitors and then between a mating pair, just to ensure the match was right.

The male stopped and stood strong and still. Every muscle on his dripping wet body was rippling. He was huffing deeply and maintaining a low growl while a mist began to form around his, like an aura. He surveyed the room with a powerful glare, clearly looking for a female whose attention he must have caught.

K'Shai watched the scene unfold with bated breath. The strong young male, with a rank and status earned from hunts and trophies of powerful and dangerous prey, with his half-ready erection throbbing between his legs while he rumbled in self-satisfaction certainly looked like an inviting opportunity. He was muscular, fit, and well proven, and had a commanding stature as he poised to draw in a ready female.

K'Shai found herself surveying the room as a silence momentarily filled the air before it was finally broken when the various soaking groups of Yautja returned to their conversations, uninterested in the male or his display. Quizzically, K'Shai looked about, figuring for sure the male had proven himself worthy for a mate.

R'chnt noticed her gazing about, her eyes shifting from the pool of five maiden females, to the only unbred elite female in the room, and back to the male who had, eventually, slithered back into the pool trying to look as casual as possible about being rejected.

He had become accustomed enough to reading her questioning gaze that he knew to provide her with an explanation before she had even said a word.

"There is no appeal in beating senseless a weaker rival that had long since submitted." He said simply. "Strong warriors fight _worthy_ opponents. Eventually a warrior either learns to discriminate who his opponents are or fails to find honor where ever he looks."

K'Shai remained quiet, contemplating R'chnt's words as she shuffled A'ryin'di out of her arms and into the bassonette on the stone floor behind them. The heated pipes running under the floor to maintain the ideal Yautja soaking temperature also had the side effect of warming up the stone floor and created a sauna-like, sinus-clearing humidity in the room that could lull just about anyone to sleep.

The baby, once out of the water, was asleep like a rock within seconds, completely content in her heated bassonette while her parents continued their soak.

Slowly, the pool they were in vacated, as their company retired to their own agendas. Only a single elder male remained in the pool with K'Shai and R'chnt and in a short while, conversation with him came to an end. R'chnt's attention turned fully onto K'Shai as he nestled into her and wrapped an arm around her soothingly. K'Shai smiled thinly and tipped her head against his mighty chest, feeling his warmth brewing off him.

He began to coo to her quietly and traced her face with the tip of his tusks as his hand slipped down her side, groped her thigh and he slid his fingers between her legs. K'Shai shifted her thighs, silently trying to shove his fingers away from her sensitive areas, trying to avoid being stimulated. She had finally gotten used to nude bathing in a coed environment, realizing that Yautja had no use for, or even _word for,_ for that matter, modesty, but she had her limitations.

After several attempts and one misplaced shift of her other hand, it was obvious R'chnt was completely aroused and found her refusal even more arousing.

"No, R'chnt. I'm not playing." She whispered to him quietly, close to his hear, hoping that no one would overhear her, and realizing it probably made her look like she was inviting him for more as she pressed her lips near his sensitive quills.

"No play, K'Shai," he echoed coyly. "You are my mate."

"Not right here, I'm not. Settle down, or we can leave," she offered as she pulled away from him again.

R'chnt purred louder and louder, more and more aroused each time she shoved him away, pleased with her powerful stance on the matter. He knew she responded well to situations that left her pressured into putting her natural reactions to use; that was when she was the most Yautja. K'Shai had become impressive enough, intriguing enough, to more than enough aroused males, and the time was upon R'chnt finally, he thought.

He instigated her further, grabbing her furiously, pressing his intentions upon her with vigor, _making_ her fight against him. She obliged, grunting softly as she continued to casually push him away.

She scooted further away from him along the sitting ledge in the pool and he simply inched down the rail along with her, allowing his aroused growl to flush the room.

"R'chnt!" K'Shai growled deeply, in probably the most Yautja sound she had ever produced.

He realized now that all attention was drawn upon them now. The other elder male in the pool with them, obviously aroused and covetous, inched himself away from them so as to imply he did not want any trouble. R'chnt glared around the room to see who was paying attention to the message he intended to send.

K'Shai used the moment to pull away from him completely, standing in the water and walking away from him as she grabbed the bassonette and slid it, and her sleeping offspring along the floor next to the pool.

R'chnt stood tall in the water, which was well up to his torso and watched K'Shai stride out of the pool further and further until her hips were just barely under the rippled surface of the heated pool. He growled prominently and moved quickly towards her as she gave him chase. K'Shai stopped and turned at the last moment, realizing she was about to be bulldozed into by a hormonally-guided completely aroused elder Yautja, and in that moment, her Yautja-ness kicked in.

She howled, released her grip on the bassonette, and turned on a dime to defend herself against R'chnt. She put up an intense, though brief, _jehdin jehdin_ spar against him. It was a truly appropriate display of any Yautja female. With a loud huff she thrashed her arms forcefully in such a manner that, combined with a purposeful wriggling of her body, successfully aided her in getting from of his grip.

R'chnt, intrigued, aroused, and proud of the powerful show, was satisfied with K'Shai's reaction. He had nearly gripped her so tightly as she shoved herself away that he could easily have damaged her delicate skin. He softened his grip at the last moment and K'Shai slipped through his fingers without ever seemingly having realized he was about to clamp down.

As she turned as walked away, once again gripping the bassonette and sliding it a few more feet down the stone floor until she released it once more as she emerged from the water further, R'chnt inflated his chest proudly, but dared not look around. He, admittedly, was shamefully curious of who might be watching, and he hoped _everyone_ was.

The message was clear and loud. K'Shai was as powerful of a force as a Yautja female, and she _was his_ , no matter even if she tried to decide otherwise.

He lunged forward and grabbed K'Shai. In one swift move, he had dropped her to the ground with a mightly bellow. K'Shai huffed a breathless grunt under him as her knees buckled. She went down onto the stonefaced ramp to the bathing pool, and squeezed her eyes shut as she felt R'chnt drop down over her.

He had a tight grip of one of her wrists, pulling it somewhat back behind her, locking her elbow tight as she attempted to tug herself forward to resist him more. His other hand dropped to the ground and he placed some of his weight upon it. With his forearm extended over her shoulder while her other arm was twisted back behind her, R'chnt had successfully entrapped K'Shai with nowhere to go.

Unable to get back on her feet under his muscular three-hundred-fifty pound frame, K'Shai simply resorted to arching her back forcefully, uselessly shoving her body into his belly as if the effort was going to prod him off of her.

Everytime she resisted, she could _feel_ his arousal. His body heated up, his growl changed. K'Shai knew she should stop fighting him, for it was feeding his instincts and thrilling him, but yet submitting to his actions quietly went against her own nature. She protested against him once again as he lowered himself into position behind her. K'Shai glanced out of the corner of her eye to her offspring, sleeping soundly and completely unaware of any strife happening just a meter away.

"R'chnt," K'Shai finally whispered softly and quietly and she paused.

She wanted to tell him this was against her modest nature. Such things were completely unnatural to her; to almost any human, she thought. She wanted to tell him to stop. She wanted to _beg_ him not to do this; to humiliate her publicly. She felt his super heated body pressed against her, wet from the soaking bath and just hot enough that it would easily turn into sweat.

She held her breath and listened to his empowered growl; a tone unlike anything she had heard from him before. She shut her eyes and felt his tusks tickling her shoulder, gliding through her hair and around her neck. She felt his body soften ever so slightly as he tipped his head deeper into the crevice of her neck and shoulder.

For a moment, she heard that growl become a purr, and she felt his solid rod looking for her entrance.

She held still and concentrated on the feel of his hot breath against her shoulder and the power of his muscular frame, pressing into her enough to hold her still, but not so much as to crush her or injure her. She focused on the cold bony sensation of his piercing tusks gliding across her skin as if to test her readiness to accept his dominance.

"Do what you must." She whispered with a soft shudder.

R'chnt growled in satisfaction and penetrated her as hard as he pleasured himself to do. K'Shai huffed and moaned, first in disgruntled annoyance, then after enough thrusts, she forgot completely about the fact that they were in public and had at least a baker's dozen of spectators.

She let the pleasure of his lubricated shaft sliding back and forth deep inside her take over. She kept her eyes shut and panted in rhythm with R'chnt's dominating penetrations and allowed the erotic ecstasy of the whole situation to sweep over her.

Just as she relaxed her body, R'chnt pierced through her skin with his tusks. K'Shai groaned loudly in pain as warm blood ran off her right shoulder and neck, though the actual punctures hurt less than getting ear piercings.

R'chnt sunk his tusks under her skin, separating the layer between epidermis and fascia. He peeled her skin away but never broke through to the muscle. She could feel his inner mouth meet her skin as he drove his tusks deeper under the peeled away flap he had made. The gums of his mouth pressed against her pained skin and with a quick, sharp prod, he shoved all of his inner mouth teeth into the middle of the bite area he created.

Two upper canines and four lower incisors all pierced through her soft tanned hide simultaneously. K'Shai felt the little punch as he bit down, but the pain was overshadowed by what she already felt from the first punctures of his four powerful tusks that capped his mighty mandibles.

He held on for a few seconds, and K'Shai was quite sure by the familiar suction feeling from the cartilaginous folds in the back of his mouth that he was most definitely sucking up her blood.

After a brief hold in which he made sure that K'Shai's skin was sufficiently punctured and would bear his mark as scars for the rest of her life, he released his grip over her right shoulder. A small dribble of blood trickled its way out of his mouth and down his chin, but R'chnt paid it no mind. He immediately moved on, pausing only briefly before sinking his tusks into his mate again.

He firmed up his grip on her wrist, he felt her sudder as she moaned both in pleasure and pain and her body sank down to the ground a little more. He bit around her neck, putting his inner mouth dead center over her cervical spine as he took hold.

He clamped down, pulled away her skin from the underlying muscles and as clenched into her skin tight, he took a moment to pump harder and powerfully, charged up by the adrenaline of a proper breeding.

K'Shai bellowed, but no longer protested. She had given in to him and she remained still, growing more tired by the moment, he could tell as her body sagged from her suspended hips while he hovered over her. Blood drained from his puncture wounds to her right shoulder and the middle of the neck, but he had not completed his effort.

So aroused he could feel his heated body ready to explode inside of his mate, he tensed up and forced the natural end to the breeding that this body was building towards to hold off.

He released his grip from her neck, withdrew his tusks from either side around the back of her throat and felt her shudder again below him, quelling an exhausted whimper of pain and ecstasy. Not yet completed with his display, R'chnt proceeded to whisk away K'Shai's tendrilled beaded hair from her left shoulder and he gripped into her skin with his tusks as she moaned again.

He pumped deeply into her and clamped down tightly as he erupted his hot thick stream into her, pulsating in pleasure as he rumbled a low growl that told the entire audience he had commanded her, she was _his_.

K'Shai slumped towards the shallow water on the ramp out of the bath, shivering from the experience, not from cold. Quite the opposite; her body was so warm from the humidity of the room, the hot water under her emanating heat up onto her bare chest and abdomen, and R'chnt's super-heated body pressing into her so tightly, K'Shai felt like she was currently made out of jelly.

She peeled herself away from him slowly as he released his grip on the third puncture area over her left shoulder and noticed the blood all over her hands as she unintentially rubbed her sore neck.

With a distinct wobble, pained from shoulder to groin by the intense mating, K'Shai barely found her footing, just enough to lurch over towards A'ryin'di's bassonette. The child stirred upon her mother's approach and clicked and trilled in a familiar high-pitched call for a meal. K'Shai sighed sharply, too weak, bleeding, and unsettled to even focus on her child's needs at the moment. She glanced precariously around the room, finally tuning back in to the fact that there had been an audience for the entire fiasco.

She could feel her face flush beet red and suddenly she started shaking from more than just fatigue. She shuddered with embarrassment as she shamefully prepared to look around, taking a brief moment to mentally prepare herself for dozens of staring faces eyeing her up in sheer disgrace.

She tried to casually and lightly lift her eyes from the child before her and glance up to the nearest Yautja subtly so they might not see her. She did not want to make eye contact with anyone; she did not want them to see her flushed face and wary gaze.

To her surprise, not anyone was looking. No one showed any hint of concern, repulsion, disgust, or even a hint of shock at what had just transpired. While a few females casually and disinterestedly glanced her way as they surveyed the room, the males in the neighboring pools seemed very purposefully looking away; not wanting to incite R'chnt.

K'Shai had well known that _this_ kind of thing was just normal mating season behavior for Yautja, but she was not Yautja, _was she?_ She thought about it. They had absolutely no awareness or concern for the fact that human beings simply did not behave in such a manner and that she found the whole thing a little too much for her comfort. The Yautja had gotten the message loud and clear and the matter was complete.

R'chnt watched K'Shai for a moment, with his chest inflated and his back straight; proudly standing tall in the water that barely went up to his calves. Noticing how she seemed to be almost confused or disoriented, he moved over towards her and picked up the bassonette as A'ryin'di's trill grew into a wail for her mother's attention. K'Shai slowly shifted her stanced and moved in next to R'chnt, following next to him out of the bath house, so closely that she leaned into him for support standing up.

When they made it out of the bath house, and donned some robes and headed outside, only then did K'Shai finally stop and sit on a low wall surrounding the outer terrace and tend to her offspring's needs.


End file.
